aLIEz
by Space Opera Singer
Summary: When the crew of the Ghost voted not to go back and save Ezra in Spark of Rebellion, he found his own way out - and started down a path of darkness and madness. Now the only thing anchoring him to the side of the light is a certain Force sensitive teen he picks up on Tatooine who can only barely keep his new friend in line on their adventures, and is loving every minute of it.
1. Chapter 1

Rated T for: Language, Violence, Badassery, Dark and Possibly Disturbing Situations, References to Child Abuse, Drug Use, Dark Side of the Force Use, Sociopathy and/or Ambiguous Morality, and possibly, in future chapters, Sexual Content.

* * *

 **Chapter One:** The Kid's On His Own

"That's two against two. Kanan, you have the deciding vote."

Kanan clenched his jaw as the weight of the decision fell on his shoulders. It was times like this that he hated being a leader. Even though this was something they'd put to a vote, in the end, his was usually the final say, as it was now.

Hera was right. It was their fault the kid had gotten captured. He wouldn't have been there if they hadn't brought him. Or if he hadn't tried to save them. And he had saved them. He'd done alright for himself. Until the end when he got grabbed.

And there was more to that, Kanan knew, than the kid just falling behind. He could see it in Zeb's eyes.

But Zeb and Sabine were right too. The Empire would be waiting for them. This wouldn't be like trying to rescue Wookies from a simple transport ship. The kid was being held on a Star Destroyer. That meant hundreds of stormtroopers and dozens of TIES.

They might be able to get into the hanger unnoticed, but once they were in . . . Kanan doubted there would be any getting out.

No.

No matter how much Kanan wanted to save the kid, and how much they might owe him, it would be suicide.

Something soul crushing and dark thrummed through Kanan as he made his decision. "We can't sacrifice all our lives for the sake of one. I'm sorry. But the kid's on his own."

* * *

"We will each be challenged. Our trust, our faith, our friendships. But we must persevere. And in time a new hope will emerge. May the Force be with you. Always."

The holographic image of Obi-Wan Kenobi, whoever that bearded guy was, disappeared, leaving Ezra alone in his cell once again. But unlike before, Ezra felt a sense of something almost like serenity.

He didn't know what the Force was, but he had a general idea of what Kenobi was talking about. The pieces were kind of fitting together, in a weird way. Kenobi was obviously a Jedi. This message must have been recorded about fourteen and a half years ago. On that fateful first Empire Day.

Since Kanan had this cube and that lightsaber, then either he was a Jedi too, or he'd looted it from one.

The things that Ezra still didn't understand were how he'd been able to open the cube, and exactly what force had guided him to find it.

His brow furrowed as a thought occurred to him. Could that force have been The Force? The thing Kenobi was talking about? Could that have been how he opened the cube too? It would kind of make sense for Jedi to have their information stored in some kind of super secret way that only other people with Jedi powers could get to it.

But those were questions for another time. Now was the time to do something, Ezra's instincts were telling him. Kenobi's message might have been a bunch of crock (Trust, faith, and friendship? Seriously?) but Ezra was still in a cell and needed to get out of it. He'd just have to rely on his own wits. Persevere, yes. Wait around for a hope to emerge? Why, when he could figure something out on his own?

He needed a plan now. Something to get those bucket heads to open the door. But how? Threaten them? No, there was nothing he could hold against them that would hold weight. Trick them? Maybe . . . by making them think he'd already escaped? No, he couldn't make that work. By making them think he was sick? Or dying? That had potential. But would it be enough on its own?

A smirk crossed Ezra's face as a plan crystallized in his mind. If he could combine a few of the ideas he had that might work, he bet he could come up with a plan that would definitely work.

"Hey stormtroopers! I know you're out there! And I gotta tell you, you've just made the biggest mistake of your lives!" Ezra called to the guards who he knew were on the other side of the door. He proceeded to issue a number of over the top threats, claiming to be the heir of the empire, a prince back on Coruscant, with a powerful family, and the nephew of the emperor himself, and threatening them about what he would do to them if they didn't release him right now.

"And you bucket-heads are going to be sorry when my uncle the emperor finds out you're keeping me here against my will. I guarantee he'll make a personal example of you," Ezra shouted finally, then put the next part of his plan into action, when he broke off into a fit of coughing, choking rasps.

Moments later the doors slid open and the guards hurried in and down the cell's steps, which Ezra was crouching in the corner, right by, out of their sight.

Quick as a flash, Ezra slipped passed them and through the door. He gave them a smirk and flashed a perky little half-salute, half-wave as a parting shot. "Bye guys."

Then he locked the door behind them and was off to get his stuff back. He shouldn't have known what way to go. But somehow he did. Less than a minute later, Ezra was in some kind of supply room, full of helmets, weapons, other munitions . . . and his stuff.

Ezra quickly snatched it back then tried to figure out his next move as he geared up. But a helmet he didn't have in his collection yet caught his eye, so on instinct he snatched it too. It took him only a few seconds to figure out how to work the comlink built into the helmet, which seemed like a good thing to do since maybe he could get some information.

"The delay was insignificant. The transport ship Agent Kallus diverted will dock on Kessel within two hours. The Wookies will be offloaded to work spice mine K-77," said a voice on the comm.

Ezra perked up unintentionally at the mention of his original objective. Or those peoples' original objective. Saving the Wookies. Not that it was his problem anymore. There was only one person he was worried about saving and that was himself.

He just had to get to a lifepod before they could catch him. Or better yet, a TIE fighter. That would give him a better chance of escaping. But Ezra realized even as he thought of that plan how slim the chances of success were. He'd never flown a starship before, not even one as small as a TIE. It was likely vastly different than a speeder. More than likely he'd be blasted into a billion pieces before he could figure out the controls and get back to Lothal.

So what was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to get out of this mess?

"This is Stormtrooper LS-005, reporting for Agent Kallus," said another voice on the comm.

"Kallus here," came the agent's cold voice.

"Sir, the prisoner's gone," said LS-005.

"What? I knew the boy would act as bait but I never dreamed the rebels would be foolish enough to attack a Star Destroyer. How did they get aboard?" shouted Kallus over the comm.

Ezra knew he needed to hide. Now that the alarm had been raised it was only a matter of time before someone came in here to try and find him. He spotted a ceiling vent and started toward it, then something else caught his eyes.

The supply room wasn't just stocked with armor. It was also stocked with weapons.

Ezra wasn't armed with anything more dangerous than an energy slingshot. And his wits. A real weapon, that was what he needed, if he wanted to survive.

So he hurried over to a weapon rack and snatched up a pair of blasters. Nothing fancy. Standard sidearm issues, they looked to be. They would do.

"Sir, the rebels didn't free him," said LS-005. "He, uh – well he – you see sir –"

"What?" demanded Kallus coldly. "How did he escape?"

It was then that something occurred to Ezra. The Imperials were expecting those bastards who'd abandoned Ezra to come back. They wouldn't, of course. People didn't do that. But the Imperials thought they did, and right now, Ezra could use that.

He hit the transmit button on his helmet and pitched his voice to mimic an adult's, going roughly for what LS-005 sounded like, but not exactly. "Agent Kallus! There's a security breach in the hangar! I don't know how but the rebel ship approached without alerting our sensors!"

"Which hangar? Report!"

Which hangar? Ezra's mind stalled. How were hangars identified? By numbers? Colors? Sectors? Could he bluff? But if he got it wrong the gig was up right then and there.

Wait, he told himself. There will be an opening. You'll find it and use it.

"Repeat, which hangar has been breached?" ordered Kallus sounding even angrier.

"This is Stormtrooper LS-017 reporting from the upper hanger. No breaches here," said another voice of someone who'd clearly decided to take the initiative.

It was then that Ezra saw his opening. _Sucker_ , he thought, smirking behind his helmet.

"What? This is LS-017. Whoever just spoke has either forgotten his number or is an imposter!" said Ezra in a tone of outrage as he did his best to mimic 017's voice.

"What? No I'm not!"

"Sir, I believe the imposter is trying to conceal the rebels in the upper hanger and sow confusion in our ranks!" Ezra barked.

Agent Kallus seemed to agree. "Order all stormtroopers to converge on the lower hangar!"

"I'm not an imposter, sir! I'm the real LS-017 and I'm at the upper hangar, and there are no intruders here!" cried the real LS-017.

"Shut up, imposter!" said Ezra.

"Agent Kallus, I must protest –"

"Shut up," snapped Kallus. "The truth will be revealed shortly."

Ezra smothered a snicker, then changed his voice again. He wasn't finished yet.

"Agent Kallus sir, this is Stormtrooper LS-123, reporting intruders in the lower hangar. Sir, I believe the upper hangar is a diversion."

"Maybe, maybe not," Kallus replied. "Squads five through eight divert to lower hangar. The rest converge as ordered.

Well, thought Ezra as he started crawling through the vent, he'd certainly stirred things up. Now he needed to figure out his next move while they were running around like crazy.

 _Think_ , he ordered himself. _Where can I get that's safe, that will help me get out of here?_ Should he launch a lifepod as a decoy then get into a TIE fighter when they scrambled their fighters to go after it? That might work. No. They'd realize too soon that something was wrong when they had more pilots than fighters. Maybe he could hide in a TIE cockpit until that one was sent out and then he could hijack it and get the pilot to take him . . . somewhere. No, too many variables that he couldn't control there, like how long that wait might be and what planet they'd be near when it actually happened.

 _Think, Bridger, think!_ He ordered himself. He couldn't stay hidden on this ship forever. Not with so many stormtroopers on it. But it's not like there was any way to get them off.

Or was there?

Ezra's eyes gleamed as a thought occurred to him.

It was insane. It was seriously, seriously insane. But it could work.

There were still a few details he needed to work out, but he could work on that as he went. For now he needed to get to the bridge.

And he had no idea which way to go. Too bad these ventilation ducts weren't labeled with arrows. This way to the bathroom. That way to the bridge. Picking a path at random it would have to be.

There was a tugging in Ezra's mind. Like his instincts wanted him to take a right turn at the first fork he reached. Ezra went with his instincts. They'd kept him alive too many times in the past for him not too. It was only when he went against them that things went south.

Suddenly, inexplicably, Ezra felt unstoppable. Like despite how ridiculous his plan was there was no way that it wouldn't succeed. Like he was an unstoppable force and the might and legions of the empire had no chance of standing against him.

 _I'm drunk on imaginary power,_ Ezra thought, but still the feeling didn't go away _. I can do this._

He didn't question his instincts when, after a hundred yards of crawling through vents, taking various turns, that feeling told him to leave the safety of the air ducts and drop down into the hall below. There was no one around. Somehow he knew there wouldn't be, but he didn't know how.

Feeling more confident with no real reason to except that things hadn't gone completely horrible so far, Ezra turned a corner and found himself in a very long, very exposed hallway. At the end of it was a pair of double doors a good deal more elaborate than anything else Ezra had seen on this burner. He had a feeling that beyond them was exactly where he wanted to be.

 _Faster_ , his instincts told him. _Move now._

Ezra obeyed, breaking into a jog, then an allout sprint as he drew close enough. The doors opened before he got close enough to trigger the motion sensors. Someone was exiting the bridge. An officer, by the looks of his uniform. Excellent. He wouldn't even be plagued by that inevitable moment where the doors opened and everyone on the bridge looked up to see who the newcomer was before he could get inside.

Ezra hit the officer at his top speed, knocking the man back inside the bridge, and to the floor. He heard a clunk as the officer's head hit the floor and knew the man was unconscious.

And so he made it inside the bridge, managing to get inside before people realized that something was amiss. But now that he was in here, everyone knew something was amiss. All twelve of them. Well, eleven. The guy he'd just knocked down didn't know much of anything right now.

Before anyone had a chance to draw their weapons, Ezra started shooting, with his blasters set on stun. He'd stolen a few blasters before today, even though he didn't run around carrying them. Someone his age carrying a blaster drew too much attention. People paid more attention to armed kids than unarmed kids, so Ezra always sold the ones he stole. After testing them out of course.

So that was how he knew he was a good shot. This might have been his first time shooting at people, but people weren't that much different than rocks. Especially these people.

Within seconds, there were only two people left conscious on the bridge. Ezra himself, and the man in the pilot's seat. That man hadn't even had a chance to draw his weapon.

"Don't," Ezra told him, seeing the man was about to. He focused all his will on the command and the warning. "You won't like the consequences if you do."

The pilot lowered his hands, almost like he was in a daze and watched Ezra almost vacantly.

"Seal the bridge," Ezra ordered him. "And the blast doors. And don't try anything funny unless you want me to fill you with burn holes."

"I'm sealing the bridge and the blast doors. And I won't try anything funny," the pilot said.

The doors swooshed shut behind Ezra even though he was still in range of their motion sensors, which would have normally kept them open. Then a thicker, heavier looking pair of doors slid over them, with a fancy spinning wheely doohickie in the middle, that whirred and clicked into place, presumably meaning they were well and truly sealed in.

Good.

Ezra stepped further into the room and motioned at the pilot with one of his blasters. "Now turn around."

The pilot obeyed with jerky movements.

"Take your blaster off your belt and drop it to the floor."

Once again the pilot obeyed.

"Now kick it away."

Once that was done, keeping half an eye on the pilot, Ezra set about securing all his unconscious prisoners, stripping them of their weapons and slapping them in the restrainer cuffs that most of them wore on their belts.

And when that was done, Ezra took a moment to admire his work.

"Wow. I just captured the bridge of a Star Destroyer." He almost couldn't believe it.

Now if only the next part of his plan would go as smoothly.

"You can control the TIES from here, right?" Ezra asked the pilot. "I mean whether or not they can be released, right?"

"Well, yes. In a way. We can seal the hangar," said the pilot.

"Okay, good. Do that," ordered Ezra.

The pilot hesitated.

"I said seal the hangar," repeated Ezra, louder this time. This time the pilot did what he said. Ezra paid attention, watching how he did it. If he ever took over another Star Destroyer it might be useful to be able to do these things himself.

"All TIE fighters are grounded. The hangar is sealed, sir."

Ezra was impressed with himself. He'd hijacked a Star Destroyer and had his hostage calling him sir. Maybe it was wrong for him to be having so much fun, but . . .

"Now turn off the life support on this ship. Everywhere except the bridge."

"What?" asked the pilot looking horrified.

"Do it!"

"B-b-but!"

"Turn. Off. The. Life. Support. Now," Ezra said slowly. "Or I swear, I will kneecap you."

The pilot paled, but turned back to the consol. Ezra watched closely over his shoulder, reading the text on the screen, making sure what he was doing looked legit. And it did. The pilot clearly liked having kneecaps.

"Good job. Now was that really so hard?" Ezra asked.

"S-sir? You do know that without life support, everyone outside of the bridge will die within two hours." The pilot looked like he was about to piss himself. "S-surely you d-don't want that, sir."

"Mmmn, no, I really don't. Two hours, you said? Good, that's actually the perfect amount of time," said Ezra. "Key in coordinates for a hyperspace jump. Find a navigation route to get us to Kessel. Spice mine K-77."

"S-sir?"

"Do it!"

"Y-yes sir!"

"And while you're doing that . . ." Ezra activated the comlink in his helmet again. "Attention assholes. I would like to inform you that I have taken control of this ship. If you see that ugly flashy emergency lighting coming on, it's because I've just turned off all this ship's life support, everywhere except for the bridge, which is sealed off, by the way."

"Who is this?" demanded a familiar voice.

"Oh, hey Kallus," Ezra said. "What's the matter? You don't recognize my voice?"

"You!"

"Yup. Me. And like I said, I'm in control of your ship now, and I've just turned off your life support."

"You impudent little – you have no idea how much trouble you're in –"

"I'd be more concerned with the trouble you're in," said Ezra. "Is this really not sinking in? Life support? Gone? Does that not compute?"

"I am on my way to the bridge right now, and when I get there I am going to skin you –"

"I've locked the bridge and sealed the blast doors," said Ezra. Then he quickly added, "And if you do feel like _trying_ to blast your way in, I think I should inform you that I've knocked out everyone on the bridge and tied them up right in front of those doors. So if you want to try to blow your way in here, which I don't think you can, but if you want to try, you'll have to blow up twelve of your own men. Isn't that kind of thing bad for moral?"

He caught the pilot looking at him and turned off his comlink for a second.

"Okay, so I lied. I haven't piled you and the unconscious guys up in front of the doors. I only just thought of that. But it's a good idea, so that's going on my to do list, which is getting shorter by the minute. How are those hyperspace coordinates coming?"

"The navigation computer is working, sir," said the pilot. "It's slightly over halfway finished plotting its route."

"Good," Ezra said. "Let me know when it's finished, but don't send us into hyperspace yet, okay?"

"Y-yes sir."

"Listen, Jabba!" Kallus was raging through the comm, "I don't know what you think to accomplish, but this only ends one way! With you dead! Surrender yourself right now and –"

"And what? You'll go easy on me when you're killing me?" asked Ezra. "Yeah right. Listen, Kallus. I have it on good authority that in two hours, you'll be out of oxygen, and you and everyone else on the other side of these blast doors will be dead. And, just to make sure you know, I've locked down the hangars. No one's getting out of here on any TIE fighters or other transport ships.

"But, beings that I'm not a crazed mass murderer, I've left you a way out," continued Ezra. "The life pods are still online, and each of them have their own life support system. I highly suggest using them to hightail it out of here like _right now_ if you don't want to die. Because I'm about to make a jump to hyperspace, to a destination which I will not be revealing to you. But I will tell you that we will be in hyperspace for far longer than two hours. And I've heard it's really not good to launch life pods or smaller ships off larger ships when you're in hyperspace."

Ezra switched off his comm and looked at the pilot again.

"That's true, right?" he asked. "You're not supposed to launch off a ship in hyperspace?"

"That is true sir," said the pilot. "But we will not be in hyperspace for far longer than two hours. The jump time between Kessel and our current position is only an hour and forty minutes."

"It is? Huh, well I guess I lied. Get used to it," Ezra said. He'd thought they'd be two hours from Kessel since that's when that diverted ship was scheduled to arrive. But maybe this ship was faster than the transport taking them there. Or maybe the diverted ship had taken a longer way, like a detour. A puzzle for another time. What mattered now was getting all these flakking stormtroopers off his ship.

And yes. It was his ship now. Ezra was the proud new owner of the Star Destroyer, at least for the time being.

"You're bluffing," Kallus was growling at him through the comlink.

"Kallus, I busted out of my cell, made my way to the bridge undetected, and incapacitated everyone in here single handedly," Ezra said. "And seeing as I've turned off all the life support, and locked down the hangars, as I'm sure you've realized by now, do you really want to try and call my bluff? Because I promise you, I'm not bluffing."

"Do you think you can get away with this, boy? The Empire is everywhere. You'll be hunted for the rest of your days."

This was probably true. Ezra felt a thrum of worry. But only for a moment. He had already shown himself a force to be reckoned with. He would do so again when he had to.

"Right now, if I was you, I'd be more worried about simply being able to live out the rest of my days," said Ezra. "I'm serious, Kallus. I think you know I'm serious. I'm jumping to hyperspace in . . . five minutes. Anyone left on the ship after that is going to die. Order your men into the life pods."

Silence reigned on the comm.

"Sir?" said the pilot. "The . . . the navigation computer is finished calculating our route. B-b-but –"

"But what?" asked Ezra after switching his comlink off again.

"Y-you said you'd give them f-five m-minutes, s-sir."

"And five minutes I shall give them," Ezra said. "Starting now."

Then they heard Agent Kallus over the comm. "All personnel, evacuate on the life pods immediately. Make sure each pod is full before departing."

"Are there holoscreens I can watch to make sure he's doing what he says he's doing?" asked Ezra.

The pilot nodded and set about helping him bring up footage from around the ship. Ezra scrolled from one piece of footage to the next until he found a holocam that caught Agent Kallus. He wanted to make sure the man was doing what he claimed and that he wasn't trying anything funny.

But it seemed that the ISB Agent had taken Ezra's threat at face value. Good. For him. Ezra had a feeling that this man might be a thorn in his side later. But this round, at least, he had won.

Ezra watched the evacuation proceed, and life pod after life pod launched out into space. His own ship picked up their distress signals, and it was quite possible that other ships in the area were doing so as well. But none of them would get here in the scant few minutes before Ezra jumped into hyperspace. And even if they did, they would be no match for his Star Destroyer.

"Time's up," the pilot said after five minutes.

Ezra looked at the screens. There were still a few pods left to be launched and people struggling to reach them.

"We'll give them another minute," he decided.

It only took 45 seconds for the last of them to be off. Then Ezra gave the order.

"Punch it," he told his pilot, and the ship jumped into hyperspace.

* * *

When Ezra decided to jump his ship to the spice mines of Kessel, it had been a decision based on timing, not any sort of heroic motivation. He didn't know how long it would take to jump from anywhere in the galaxy to anywhere else, and had assumed, from what he heard on his helmet's comlink, that Kessel would be a two hour jump from his current position. Just enough time to make sure that anyone on the ship but not on the bridge was dead from lack of life support before he got back into normal space, where they might be able to summon people to help them, if they were still alive.

But now, he realized, after working out how much time everything had taken, he would be arriving at Kessel at almost exactly the same time as the ship bearing the Wookie prisoners. Maybe even before them.

And so now Ezra was faced with a decision that he would have preferred not to have to make.

He distracted himself from it by looting the unconscious officers on the bridge, stealing a couple fancy chronos off their wrists, and replacing his standard issue blaster pistols with some nicer, more expensive ones that handled better. He even found a nice pair of glareshades on one that could be useful. When he made his escape, on whatever planet he ultimately ditched this Star Destroyer on, he could use them as part of a disguise, like that bounty hunter Bossk had taught him not too long ago.

He also scrolled through the footage of all the cameras on the ship, making sure that there were no stragglers who'd missed the evacuation. Because he supposed that if there were, he could wait until they went unconscious, then turn the life support back on. And then go tie them up while they were still knocked out.

Ezra had never killed anyone before. Yet. He was pretty sure he was capable of it. Especially when it came to these Imperial types. But needless death, well let's just say he wasn't a fan of it. Even if it did involve these Imperial types.

Then it occurred to Ezra. He was willing to take a few risks to save any lingering Imperials on this ship, but not to save the Wookies?

Not that he owed them anything, or even knew any Wookies personally, but he heard from the people on that ship that they'd been soldiers for the Old Republic.

The Old Republic. Something his parents had been big fans of. They'd talked about it as if it had been an age of glory. Like if it had continued, things would have been better. Ezra had never known anything but life under the Empire. He'd been cursed with the misfortune of being born on the day that it was founded.

And now he'd just landed himself in a ton of trouble with it. The Empire was not going to take the theft of one of its Star Destroyers lightly, Ezra knew. He hadn't thought his plan out all the way when he put it into motion. But now that he had, well, it still wasn't like he'd had a lot of options. Even in hindsite he couldn't see another way he could have done things and gotten out of it all alive and free. Though he wasn't out of this alive and free yet. He would have to come up with the next part of his plan, and soon.

But try as he might, Ezra couldn't. Because his thoughts kept being drawn back to the Wookie prisoners, who he'd be emerging from hyperspace very close to, within the next hour. And something Ezra's father had once told him ran through his mind.

 _"We have to stand up for people in need. Especially those in trouble with the Empire."_

Well, his parents had tried that, and look where it had gotten them. What had they really ever managed to achieve by speaking out against the Empire? Nothing good. Nothing useful. In the end, they couldn't even help themselves. They were just two civilians who didn't know when to keep their mouths shut.

But these Wookies were soldiers.

Ezra perked up as he realized that they might be useful. Maybe they were what he needed for the next part of his plan. He'd been trying to think of what to do with this ship, and where to take it all by himself, but what if he added a few more pieces to this game? Pieces that were on his side, or at least not against him, like every other one already on this holochess board was.

And suddenly, Ezra's mind became clearer. Several plans started falling into place.

* * *

Little Kitwarr was scared even before the Star Destroyer showed up. The place where he and his fellow Wookies had been taken to was like a scary manmade jungle of duracrete and pipes all built around a huge pit. The ground was dry and cracked. Nothing grew here. And the sky was a hazy, dreary yellowish.

He cried out to his father, Wulffwarro, who he'd always thought was the strongest, bravest being in the universe. His father turned and patted his head, warbling back at him not to lose hope. For a moment Kitwarr could almost believe him.

But the moment was interrupted by one of the scary stormtroopers in their stark white armor. "Keep moving!"

The stormtroopers all had guns, and Kitwarr knew they would use them if given the slightest reason. Sometimes they used them for no reason. He'd seen more than one of his father's friends fall that way since they'd been captured.

So he and his father obeyed.

Then the sky went dark.

Kitwarr cried out in fear as he looked up and saw the ship blotting out the sun, a giant wedge of darkness. His fellow Wookies were discomforted by its presence too. And even the stormtroopers seemed surprised.

"What the – were any Star Destroyers scheduled to dock here?"

"Of course not, idiot. This place isn't big enough for them to dock! There is seriously nowhere for it to land!

"Then what's it doing here?"

"Heck if I know?"

The Star Destroyer sank lower and lower until it was almost right on top of them.

"What is it doing? Is that pilot crazy? He's going to cause a cave in if he tries to land here!"

"Never mind a cave in! He's going to crush us!"

But the Star Destroyer didn't land. Instead it open fired.

The stormtroopers in front of the Wookies were the first to fall, blasted by a weapon intended to pierce starship shields, not simple combat armor. The effect wasn't pretty. Kitwarr stared in horror at the remainder of the soldiers. He hadn't liked them but he wasn't sure if they deserved that.

He howled his terror as other stormtrooper groups also went down. His father grabbed him awkwardly since his wrists were still cuffed, and tried to pull him behind some crates to take cover as death and destruction rained all around them.

None of the Wookies seemed to know what was happening. Was the Empire turning on its own stormtroopers here? Or were they just coming in and killing everyone? But if that was it, then why had none of the Wookies been hit?

Not all Wookies had made it to cover, Kitwarr saw when he peered past the crates. Several were running about frantically. But none had been hit. All around them the ground was littered with dead stormtroopers. Well, dead stormtrooper parts. But not a single dead Wookie.

Then there was a very loud THUMP! And something shook the ground. A TIE fighter. But not one in the air. It had landed on the ground near them, right near their cover. None too gently. And no one seemed to be inside.

Then there was another THUMP. Another TIE on the ground. It was like someone was using autopiloting to land them, which even Kitwarr knew was bad for the ships and should only be done in an emergency.

Which . . . this might actually be.

There was a hastily growled conversation between Wulffwarro and one of his friends, then his friend hurried toward the nearest TIE and leapt on top of it. He grabbed the hatch, looking like he was going to try to pry it open, but to Kitwarr's surprise it opened with no resistance.

His father's friend looked inside then howled back to them. The fighter was empty!

Another quickly howled conversation and Kitwarr was pulled to his feet by his father, and rushed to that TIE.

It was a cramped fit with two fullgrown Wookies and a youngling like Kitwarr, but it was nothing compared to the hardships they'd faced since being captured by the Empire.

Around them TIEs continued to almost fall out of the ship, practically crash landing with the autopilot. Kitwarr saw their fellow Wookies dashing to them as the TIE he was in rose into the sky, now piloted by his father.

At first he didn't know where they were going. When he realized they were heading for the Star Destroyer's hangar, Kitwarr first thought his father had gone crazy. But then he realized that whoever was controlling that Star Destroyer was probably on their side.

This . . . this was a rescue?

It was insane but . . . but it had worked!

Kitwarr never thought that flying a TIE into a Star Destroyer would mean freedom, but found himself howling a cheer as they flew right past the blaster cannons meant to defend the hangar and weren't blasted out of the sky.

Wulffwarro landed their TIE on the far end of the hangar to stay out of the way of the other TIEs that were still being autopiloted down to the planet's surface, and especially the ones flying back in bringing other Wookies aboard.

His father's friend warbled out an incredulous sentiment.

"This is the craziest rescue I've ever seen or heard of. And I used to fight alongside Jedi."

Wulffwarro echoed the sentiment in his own howl.

Kitwarr wanted to get out of the TIE's cockpit quickly and meet their rescuers. He wanted to thank them and see who had been on their side. But Wulffwarro kept him in the cockpit, and told him that it wasn't safe to go out now. Not with all those TIEs zipping through the hangar, when they didn't even know exactly what was going on yet.

His impatience made it seem like it took a lot longer, but it actually only took a few minutes before all the Wookies were inside the Star Destroyer and there was a thrum of energy as the hangar's shields went up. The Star Destroyer lurched slightly, like they were going up and like the pilot wasn't used to the controls. Which would make sense if the other rebels out there had just stolen this Star Destroyer.

There was another slight rumble as they started rising faster and the hangar doors were sealed before they could break away from the planet's atmosphere.

Curious, Kitwarr took a look around. There was no one else in the hangar except his fellow Wookies. He thought that one of their allies would have come down to meet them or something.

Another Wookie gave a call, pulling their attention to something. Thrown off to one side was a pile of droids with their power cells pulled out to disable them. The Empire wouldn't have done that. Someone else was definitely in control of this ship.

* * *

Ezra cried out as a blaster bolt sliced along the left side of his face. If he hadn't moved right when his instincts warned him, he would have had a hole all the way through his head.

The pilot. The fucking pilot. He'd taken his attention off the man for a few seconds, and now he was paying for it.

He lunged to the side when his instincts screamed, but was too slow. The bolt hit him in the lower side, slightly above his hip. Ezra slumped to the ground.

The pilot stood over him, holding him at blaster point and shaking. "Y-you have no idea what you've done. How much trouble you've gotten m-m-me into. Even following your orders at blaster point like I have been. I don't know if it w-will be better for me to keep you alive and hand you over to the authorities, or just kill you so I can take c-credit for your death."

Rage shot through Ezra, stronger than the pain. Rage like nothing he had ever known. This bastard, this coward was standing over him, talking about his death in terms of profit, and couldn't even speak without stuttering, he was so scared!

Ezra was not in a good position, but this wasn't over yet. He and the pilot were the only ones on the bridge now. After he turned back on the life support, he'd moved all the remaining officers into the nearest closet. Even though he was injured, it was still just him and the pilot. Ezra wasn't even unarmed. He could turn this around. He _would_ turn this around. Again, all he had to do was wait for his opening.

Or make his opening.

Taunting was always a good strategy for forcing openings. Taunting made people careless.

So Ezra fixed the coward pilot with his worst glare, and suggested to him with as much maliciousness as he could muster, "If you're that scared of what's going to happen, why don't you just shoot yourself in the head to get out of it, coward?"

The pilot stared at him vacantly. Then, to Ezra's complete disbelief he raised his blaster to his own temple.

"I'm that scared of what's going to happen, so I'm just going to shoot myself in the head to get out of it."

Ezra's mouth hung open. His rage dissipated in a flash, replaced by confusion and incredulity. And there in the end, in that last second, the pilot's vacant look cleared up and he looked confused too. Too bad for him, he'd already put too much pressure on the trigger.

The laser bolt tore through the pilot's skull, cooking his brain, making a stream of blood and clotted, congealed gore burst out the other side of his head.

"Ahh! Shit!" Ezra screamed, feeling nausea well up in him. The pilot's brains . . . some of them had splattered on his boots. He screamed again as the corpse dropped to the deck and scrabbled backwards to get away from the grotesque thing. Body. Corpse.

Suddenly it was hard to breath. Ezra felt like he was starting to hyperventilate. What the hell had just happened? Why had the pilot killed himself just because Ezra suggested it? Was the man that stupid or that scared? And was this Ezra's fault?

That thought left Ezra feeling cold and numb. Or maybe he'd started feeling cold before that. Hard to say. Everything had happened so fast, was still happening so fast. This wasn't over yet. No.

He was still in the middle of . . . of a disaster. The Star Destroyer had just broken the atmosphere. From another computer station in the bridge, some other Imperial was trying to raise him on the comms, wanting to know what this Star Destroyer was doing in his sector. He'd been yammering for awhile, since before Ezra started blowing up stormtroopers down on Kessel, but it didn't sound like this guy had heard about it yet.

Ezra didn't know how much longer it would stay that way. He had to get them out of here now.

Shaking, but only a little, Ezra regained his feet and made his way to the navigation computer as quickly as he could. He double checked to make sure that the calculations were complete before pressing down the button that would make the jump. The stars blurred into lines, and then they were safely in hyperspace.

It was then that Ezra's stomach rebelled and he threw up all over another nearby computer. He didn't know what that one did, but hopefully nothing important. As long as it wasn't the navigation computer, which it wasn't, it would probably be fine. This ship wasn't going to be around much longer. Ezra had figured out the next part of his plan, after figuring out how to rescue the Wookies.

Oddly enough, that plan didn't involve the Wookies for it to work. He could have done it perfectly fine without them, but since he was already at Kessel, well, Ezra had gone ahead and saved them anyway.

Maybe that had been a mistake. He'd lowered his guard with that pilot because he was rescuing them. But maybe that would have inevitably happened eventually anyway. Hard to say. And right now it didn't matter.

Ezra could see his . . . guests? Crew? Passengers? Well whatever they were, they were milling about the hangar curiously. He saw them on the camera footage from the hangar. One of them had found some kind of tool that was splitting open their cuffs, freeing their arms.

They were probably wondering why no one was coming to tell them what was going on. Well, they could wait a little longer, or figure it out themselves. Ezra figured he'd earned a few minutes of rest after saving their furry asses and talking an enemy into killing himself.

He collapsed into a chair and put a hand gingerly to the wound on his side. It hurt like crazy, but it probably wasn't fatal. As long as it didn't get infected.

Ezra stripped off his vest, the top part of his coveralls, and the raggedy shirt he wore underneath it and did his best to patch himself up. He used his shirt as bandages after tearing it up. It was with some regret that he did that. He'd had that shirt a long time. It was threadbare in places now but had done a good job insulating him from the cold in the Lothal winters.

Oh well. This had to be done. Maybe he could snag another shirt before he ditched this ship. That was on his to do list anyway. Loot the barracks.

Suddenly the bridge doors swooshed open. Ezra jumped and nearly fell out of his chair. He spun around, raising one blaster, then lowered it and calmed slightly, seeing that it was just the Wookies, and not any Imperials that may have gotten aboard, or been hiding aboard the whole time.

Careless, he berated himself. He should have remembered to seal the doors again before his little assault on Kessel. He would remember next time.

One of the Wookies, a large silverback who seemed to be their leader, grunted something at Ezra after he and all the rest finished staring incredulously at the young teen who was alone on the bridge, but for a corpse that had its brains splattered out.

Ezra sighed tiredly. "I don't speak Wookie."

The Wookie grunted again.

"No, howling slower isn't going to help," Ezra said. Then he realized he was being needlessly rude. "Look, I'm sorry. We're getting off on the wrong foot. I'm just a little exhausted. You wouldn't believe the day I've had. Well, maybe you would. You just saw the last bit of shit I pulled. How'd you like that rescue, by the way?"

The silver Wookie warbled something at him that sounded like approval.

"You can understand me, right?" asked Ezra deciding he should make sure of this now.

Silver nodded.

"Okay, good. Well, the situation is this. I kinda hijacked this ship from the Empire. And by kinda I mean I escaped from the cell they tossed me into, got to the bridge while they were running around looking for me and imaginary invaders that I tricked them into thinking existed, sealed off the bridge, and turned off the rest of the ship's life support systems," explained Ezra. "Then I gave them a chance to escape in the life pods, which as far as I can tell, they all took. Everyone except the guys who were on the bridge with me, because they were knocked out. Now they're locked in a closet. Except one guy who I needed because he could pilot this thing and I couldn't two hours ago. But he tried to kill me just now, and then, well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you what happened next, but as you can see, he's dead."

Two Wookies looked up from their inspection of the corpse and warbled something that seemed to be agreement with Ezra's assessment of the guy.

"Right now we're on a course for an Outer Rim planet called Tatooine," Ezra continued. "We should get there in about three hours. I picked that place because it's far away from any major transport routes and there's nothing there to interest the Empire enough to have much more than a token presence there. I figure we can abandon ship, use the TIEs to get to a space port, and use the credits we're going to loot from the barracks to buy passage off planet, hopefully before the Empire tracks their missing Star Destroyer to Tatooine. Sound good?"

There was something the Wookies wanted to communicate to Ezra, but he couldn't understand them and they couldn't make themselves very clear with pantomiming. They tried for a few minutes, before one of them finally got the bright idea to write down what they wanted to say in Basic. They even managed to find a computer that they could type it on.

 _We will call allies when we exit hyperspace._

That was what Silver typed.

"You're going to call someone to pick you up you mean?" asked Ezra.

Silver nodded.

"Okay. That's cool, I guess. Probably safer if you've got someone you can trust to get you away." Ezra had identified the problem of a whole bunch of Wookies trying to get off a sparsely populated planet like Tatooine, all at once. They weren't exactly inconspicuous, even if they split up. But that hadn't been his problem so he hadn't mentioned it.

Silver nodded again and typed another message.

 _You are welcome with us._

Ezra eyed him warily. "IIIIIIIIIII don't think so," he said, drawing out his answer slightly in his uncertainty. "Yeah. No. Probably not a good idea."

The last time he'd gone with a crew had been disastrous. Hence the reason he was here. Things always went much better when he acted on his own. He didn't know these Wookies, and even though he'd just saved them he had no reason to trust them. And he didn't even speak their language. They could understand him, yes, but he couldn't understand them, and that was just asking for frustration and problems.

To his relief, Silver didn't push him.

 _If you change your mind, you will still be welcome._

"Thanks big guy," said Ezra. "But I've got other plans. You know how it is."

Silver looked like he understood. Maybe he thought Ezra had a family he was keen on getting back to. Or just on getting back to his own home. Or alternately, maybe he thought Ezra was like one of those idiots of that Ghost crew that had been out to fight the Empire, and that he had secrets to guard and places to be or something. Whatever he thought, he was probably wrong.

Because the truth was, Ezra didn't know what he was going to do after getting off Tatooine. He was torn between going back to Lothal . . . or going someplace else entirely.

Lothal was home. It was familiar. He knew the ins and outs there, how to stay safe, or safe enough, anyway. Anywhere else was unfamiliar territory. But the Empire might be looking for him on Lothal after this stunt. And he might not be able to loot enough credits to get back there anyway.

 _Best not to make definite plans yet,_ he decided. _Best stay flexible_.

"Well, I've got some looting to do," Ezra said. "I think I know where the barracks are, if you want to come along."

Normally he would be reluctant to share a score, but for once Ezra was literally looking at more loot than he could carry. Even if he didn't find a lot of hard currency in the stormtroopers' personal belongings, this ship was full of stuff that could be converted into credits. Weapons, helmets, tech, rations, droids (all disabled before he left hyperspace the first time, because he remembered his run in with that cocky little droid on the Ghost).

To summarize it, Ezra could afford to be generous. This had nothing to do with the fact that these Wookies had even less than he did.

Silver stopped him with a grunt and typed another message.

 _You are injured._

Something clenched at Ezra's chest. He forced the feeling away. These Wookies weren't really concerned about him. Not really. Not beyond the passing interest you might show because of gratitude.

He gave a careless flutter of one hand to wave away Silver's concerns. "I've been hurt worse than this. It's never stopped me from stealing from the Empire before."

Something squelched beneath Ezra's foot. He looked down and jumped back, realizing that he'd just stepped into a blob of goo that had come out of the dead pilot's skull when that lunatic shot himself in the head.

Ezra quickly back peddled and struggled to keep his stomach under control. He averted his eyes, which landed on the blaster that the pilot had used to . . .

Actually, that was a really nice blaster.

It was compact, and very concealable. Upon closer inspection, Ezra saw that it had been hidden in a sheath near the pilot's ankle, under his trouser's leg. It hadn't occurred to him to wonder how the pilot had gotten a blaster before now, but that explained it.

Ezra bit his lower lip and glanced at Silver, who was still watching him. He quickly looked away, because the look in the Wookie's eyes was compassionate, almost caring, and Ezra couldn't stand that. Not now.

So what Ezra did next was half to wipe that look out of the silver Wookie's eyes and half because, well, he really liked that concealable little blaster. But he knelt down and removed it from the pilot's stiff, dead fingers, and for good measure, stole the holster too. It was custom made for that blaster, after all, no sense in separating the set.

When he looked back up at Silver, he saw that look had faded some.

That's right, old man. I'm not some kid who shrinks away at the sight of a corpse, he thought, ignoring the fact that there was still plenty of compassion in Silver's gaze, even though some of the concern had gone out at the sight of Ezra's little bit of grave robbing.

* * *

The barracks were easy enough to find. A number of Wookies had followed Ezra there and joined him in tearing them apart, looking for credits and other useful loot.

None of the Wookies were interested in clothes, but Ezra found himself a new set, because what he had been wearing would attract too much of the wrong kind of attention, beings that there was a rather large blotch of his own blood on one side, right above one hip.

When all was said and done, Ezra was wearing a pair of black trousers made for civilians rather than soldiers, but that were still plenty durable, and utilitarian. And a little on the large side, because, surprise, surprise, everyone who'd lived on this damn ship had been bigger than Ezra. He found a brown leather belt to keep them from falling down, and transferred his shin protector/knee pad piece over, as well as his nifty new concealable blaster. He replaced his old brain-stained boots, swapping them for a pair that had belonged to an officer. They were also a little too big, but not so much that it would get in his way. In time, Ezra would grow into them. Hopefully.

He found himself a new shirt, the same color as his hair, transferred over his gloves, energy slingshot, and old short-sleeved vest, and found a new jacket that was a medium shade of brown, and cut long so that it hung nearly down to his knees. He was able to find some holsters for the other blaster pistols he'd picked up, that kept his new weapons concealed under his jacket, so he wouldn't draw too much attention. He kept his old backpack but also picked up a new side bag with a shoulder sling, for the other loot he was picking up.

That ended up getting stuffed with a small medkit, so he could tend his side better when he had a chance, some odds and ends that he could sell to a fence or pawner for a good price, ration packs from a supply room, and good number of credit chips. More credits than Ezra had ever had in his life.

Individually, these soldiers weren't swimming in credits, but there were a lot of soldiers who'd lived in those barracks, and together, their pooled wealth amounted to a small fortune.

There was some time left over after the looting was done, Ezra returned to the bridge, with the Wookies who'd gone with him. There were more Wookies at the bridge now. Ezra guessed that they hadn't all gone at first because they hadn't known what to expect, but since there was only one measly human who they could easily squash occupying the ship with them, it was deemed safe.

A very young Wookie was there now, squacking and honking to Silver when Ezra entered. By the abrupt silence that followed the swoosh of the doors after he stepped in, and all the guilty looks aimed his way, he could tell they'd been talking about him.

That was gratitude for you.

"No, no, don't stop talking on my account," Ezra said. "I don't understand what you're saying anyway."

Someone had covered the dead pilot with a sheet, assumedly stolen from the barracks. And someone else, or maybe the same Wookie had cleaned up the computer Ezra had thrown up on, probably so the room wouldn't stink. That was good, since another Wookie, or at least he hoped it was a different Wookie, had brought in some boxes of rations, presumably scrounged from a supply room. The Wookies had torn into them, and wrappers were strewn around the place.

Ezra walked up and snagged two ration packs without any invitation, strode to the captain's seat, and sank into it like he owned the ship. Which he kind of did, for the moment.

He tore into his own rations, suddenly aware of how damn hungry he was. How long had it been since he'd eaten? He couldn't remember now. Not since he'd been back at his tower, before saving that ungrateful merchant from that treason charge, before that crazy speeder chase that ended with him temporarily joining up with those idiots on that Ghost ship, then getting abandoned by them right after he saved their lives.

Ezra's eating became more savage. Table manners, what little he'd had, went out the window as he wolfed down his food. When he finished one package, he ripped the next one open with his teeth and bit into it with abandon.

He was angry at himself. And the crew of the Ghost. Even though he completely understood why they'd done what they had done, and would have probably done the same thing if he was them, he was still mad. Because, well, if he was honest, he'd liked them. Kind of. Sabine, at least. And Hera had been decent. But if he ever saw that dumb hairless Wookie again, he just might light him on fire. And as for Mr. Tough Guy . . .

For some reason that felt like the biggest betrayal, and Ezra didn't know why. It wasn't like he had any kind of bond with that scruffy ponytailed man. Maybe it was because Ezra had thought that there'd been some respect between the two of them. It wasn't everyday you met someone else with the reflexes to ride speeders like they both had. That chase had been fun.

And that guy had kind of looked out for him during part of that blown rescue op. The first part of it.

But in the end, he'd left Ezra behind, like everyone else in Ezra's life always had.

Maybe what was really bothering Ezra was that his instincts had told him that Mr. Tough Guy had been a decent guy. The kind of guy it was okay to follow. It wasn't often that his instincts were wrong, so he guessed he was feeling betrayed by his own instincts. That must have been it.

No.

Ezra realized he had just misinterpreted his instincts. It hadn't been that ponytailed man they'd guided him toward. It had been that guy's stuff. The laser sword and the cube. The cube that had told him about that Force thing. That thing Ezra wanted to learn more about.

A warble from right at his elbow got his attention. Ezra looked down and saw the Wookie kid standing there, holding a cup of water out to him.

"For me?" asked Ezra.

The Wookie cub nodded and Ezra accepted the water.

"Thanks."

The Wookie cub gave him a big grin that somehow siphoned off a little of Ezra's anger and made him see there was no point in seething over it now. He'd settle up with the crew of the Ghost the next time he saw them. And somehow, he knew that there would be a next time.

* * *

Wulffwarro worried over the human cub. Despite the small human's assurances that he was fine on his own and could take care of himself, it was quite clear that he wasn't fully grown, and his instincts as a father were telling him that the boy really wasn't alright.

It wasn't just the injury on his side, or the way he'd looked so sick when he first regarded the corpse of that other human, whose brains had been shot out. Something was clearly bothering the little human beyond all that.

Wulffwarro might never find out what, because the boy was insistent on going his own way. After they exited hyperspace, the Wookies had sent out calls to several of their allies. The closest ones were on their way to pick them up now and would be there in half an hour tops. The human boy was about to take one of the TIE fighters and leave, to head down to the surface of Tatooine. And from there he planned to get passage elsewhere.

Wulffwarro didn't know where. He wondered where the boy planned to go. Somehow he didn't think that he had a family to go to.

He wondered what the human cub had done to be captured by the Empire in the first place. No matter what it had been, he knew the Empire couldn't have known how much trouble they were bringing on board when they decided to throw him into a cell.

A single boy, stealing an entire Star Destroyer was something he had never heard of happening before. The idea was too bizarre to even think of. How the boy had even conceived that idea, Wulffwarro would never know. Though there was something about him . . .

Wulffwarro had known people capable of extraordinary things once. During the Clone Wars and at the Battle of Kasshyyk, he'd fought alongside Jedi who did so many things that should have been impossible. This boy reminded him a bit of them, though if someone said to him that this boy was training to be one, he would have been surprised. This boy was far too thin. He looked unhealthy the way people who never had enough to eat looked unhealthy. If he'd been a Jedi's protégé, most likely he would have been better fed. Likewise if he was one of Fulcrum's agents.

And though Wulffwarro did consider trying harder to convince the boy to come with him, because he knew how valuable a recruit this boy could be, he stopped himself. Something told him that pushing too hard would be a Bad Idea. Something about this boy scared him. Wulffwarro knew without a doubt that this boy was very, very dangerous.

Despite that, if the boy needed help, Wulffwarro would come, and he made sure the human cub knew that before he departed. He and all his clanmates owed this boy their lives and freedom. He owed the boy his son's life. There was a debt he could never repay.

"So long, Silver," said the human cub, after pushing a ladder up to one of the TIEs in the hangar. Then he addressed Kitwarr who'd insisted on coming down to see his new hero off as well. "You too, little one. Stay out of trouble."

Kitwarr warbled agreement. Wulffwarro privately thought that it was the little human who was more likely to get in trouble than his well behaved son. But even if he'd said so, the little human would not have understood.

So Wulfwarro reached out and placed a hand on the human cub's head instead, gently ruffling his hair, as he would have one of his own nephews, or one of the younglings of his tribe.

"Safe travels, little warrior," he said, even though he knew his words would not be understood. But he could tell that the little warrior understood the sentiment.

For a second, the little warrior's eyes shone overbright, like he might start crying from that single affectionate gesture. But he blinked quickly and gave them a smile, then put on a black pilot's helmet and quickly scaled the ladder to the top of the TIE. He gave them, and the rest of the Wookies who'd come to see him off, a grand wave then dropped down into the cockpit. Seconds later, the TIE lifted off the ground, coasted out the hangar door, and disappeared into space.

Regret briefly thrummed through Wulffwarro. Scary or not, dangerous or not, the little warrior had still been a child. And he had still saved all the Wookies. Wulffwarro wished that there had been something more he could have done for the little warrior. But he knew that short of kidnapping the boy and forcing him to come with them for his own good, there was nothing else he could have done.

So he simply wished the little warrior well. He had the feeling that they would meet again.

* * *

It was Ezra's first time piloting a TIE but he picked up the hang of it pretty quickly. It was so easy that even an Imperial could do it, after all. He'd always known it wouldn't be a problem for him.

Ezra was still undecided about whether or not to try to make it back to Lothal, but had decided his first move would be to head to a space port and take the first flight off Tatooine he could get. Or at least the first flight that wasn't to someplace ridiculously dangerous and crawling with Imperials. It would be better to be away from here by the time the Empire came looking for the remains of their Star Destroyer, which Silver had promised to set for a collision course in Tatooine's endless desert.

Once he was on another planet, Ezra decided he would lay low for awhile and think it over before making any final decision.

He entered the planet's atmosphere and fiddled with the TIE's nav computer, trying to find the coordinates of a town with a space port, but something was off with it. The TIE seemed to think it was on Lothal and was bringing up an error on the nav screen. Ezra sighed and tried to figure out how to adjust the settings to see if he could switch it to another planet.

But then, without warning, he slumped forward, overwhelmed with dizziness. The TIE was suddenly too stuffy. He gasped for air, and in panic wondered if something was wrong with the wound on his side, if it was worse than he'd thought. Then the dizziness cleared and his vision shifted.

 _He was somewhere else, probably lightyears from the TIE he was flying now. Another planet, one that was stark and industrial, or at least the city he was in was. Ezra ran at full speed toward the edge of the roof he'd been running across and leapt out into space. That should have been certain death. He was so high in the air, and the next building was far, too far away. And there was traffic between the two roofs, heavy traffic. Hovercars sped by, but somehow didn't hit him. He just managed to slip through the impossibly small gap between two of them, earning himself some angry honking from the drivers. His feet touched down on the opposite side's roof, already running again._

 _It was only then that he realized someone was right behind him, no beside him, catching up with him. A blond teenager, about his own age kept pace with him, having followed him in that impossible jump. Somehow that realization brought no surprise. It felt like this was right somehow. Like it was natural for this other teen to be at his side._

Then the scene changed.

 _He was in a cantina, a dark and smoky cantina. And he wasn't alone. The blond teen stood by him, and he was laughing at something Ezra had said. His blue eyes danced merrily and a boyish grin split his face. Ezra dug an elbow into his side, not too hard, just teasingly and called to the barkeep for another round of drinks._

Another shift.

 _He and the blond teen were standing in front of a very large group of stormtroopers, all of whom were pointing blaster rifles at them. And Ezra and his . . . friend? Associate? Ally? Well, whatever the other boy was to him, he was bickering with him. They were ignoring the stormtroopers and having their own little argument._

 _"I'm gonna do it," Ezra heard himself say._

 _"No," the other teen said, sounding harassed. "Don't do it."_

 _"Oh come on," wheedled Ezra._

 _"No."_

 _"Look at all them!"_

 _"Ezra, just no. The situation isn't desperate enough for you to do that."_

 _"Oh alright. We'll do it your way."_

 _And then Ezra and the other teen both drew weapons. In his mind, Ezra did a double take at the sight of them, because bloody hell, they were cool. They had laser swords like the one Ezra had found in Mr. Tough Guy's room. Lightsabers, he'd called them. Only theirs were differently colored._

 _The blond boy was using a green lightsaber. And Ezra was using two lightsabers instead of one. Their blades were shorter than the blond boy's green saber, or Mr. Tough Guys's blue one, but they seemed a better length for Ezra._

 _And both his blades were blood red._

 _The stormtroopers open fired and Ezra and his companion immediately began deflecting the blaster fire back at them. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the blond boy raise the hand that wasn't holding his lightsaber, pushing his palm out toward the stormtroopers, and at that motion, the stormtroopers in front of him went flying as though they'd been pushed._

Then, one final time, the vision changed.

 _Ezra was still fighting but this time he was alone. He was in a place that was dark and cold, and he knew there was danger here._

 _Someone appeared out of the shadows and raised a blaster. Ezra didn't give them time to get off a shot. Up went his hand, like he'd seen the blond boy do in that last section of the hallucination. But instead of being pushed, the person in the shadows rose in the air, kicking their feet and clawing at their neck, like they couldn't breathe. Like they were being choked._

 _Ezra made a slight motion with his hand, like he was dismissing them. He heard a snap. And suddenly the struggles ceased and a corpse dropped to the floor._

 _Ezra strode forward with deadly purpose. Anyone who got in his way would meet the same fate. There was something he had to do, something so important. He would kill anyone who got in his way._

 _And right before the vision faded out, Ezra got the briefest glimpse of his own reflection, in what must have been a window. His face was older. Not too much older, he didn't look like a full grown adult yet. But he was definitely a few years older. The blaster mark that the dead pilot had given him today had left a scar. He'd picked up a second one underneath it somehow, so together the two scars looked a bit like a loth-cat's whiskers. But those were barely noticeable next to another feature. Ezra's eyes. They were no longer the heavenly blue color he'd inherited from his parents. Instead they were a sinister, glowing yellow._

"Shit!" Ezra snapped back to reality at the exact same instant his TIE crashed into a cliff wall. Something crunched. And something else shattered. Ezra's body was slammed forward, into the controls. Then everything went dark. And this time Ezra didn't dream.

* * *

 _Afterwards_

Bossk had seen a lot of things in his time as a bounty hunter. But never before had he seen Boba Fett looking like someone had ripped the leg off a bantha and slapped him across the face with the bloody end of it. But that was how Boba looked right now, minus the blood, as the human stood there gaping at his datapad.

"What's the matter with you?" Bossk demanded, inviting himself up to Boba's table, even though the two of them weren't strictly friends. If Fett had a problem with it, they'd simply come to blows. Wasn't like that had never happened between the two of them.

He tried not to think about how, looking so stricken like that, Boba looked much younger. Bossk had known him when he'd been a youth and just getting started. But he didn't want to remember that right now. It reminded him a little too much of that kid he'd run into on Lothal last week. And he'd prefer not to think of that shorty right now.

Thankfully, Boba provided a decent distraction, sliding his datapad across the table rather than deigning to answer verbally.

Bossk made the mistake of taking a drink at the exact moment he looked at the screen. He ended up spitting the mouthful out, all over an unfortunate passerby.

The unfortunate passerby drew himself up in outrage, but then apparently recognized the two bounty hunters, shut up, and shuffled quickly away. Bossk didn't even notice. He was too busy gaping in disbelief at Fett's datapad.

"This a joke?" he asked finally.

"It's an official Imperial posting," said Boba. "It should be legit. Except it's . . ."

"Damn ridiculous."

"Exactly," Fett agreed.

"The Empire want a war with the Hutts or something? Because that's what they're going to get, putting a bounty out on Jabba the mother of all Hutts," scoffed Bossk.

"You see what the charges are?" asked Boba.

"Hijacking a Star Destroyer?" Bossk shook his head. "Like that's even possible."

Boba nodded. "Good payout though."

"If it's legit," said Bossk.

"We both know there's no way Jabba himself actually hijacked a Star Destroyer," agreed Boba.

"Not that that would matter if they've really pinned that price on him," said Bossk.

The two bounty hunters sat in silence, mulling this strange turn of events over for a few minutes.

Finally, Bossk stood. "We're going to need to recruit a few more if we want to collect any bounty on Jabba."

Boba stood too with a curt nod. Bossk knew they were both thinking the same thing.

Tatooine was about to become a blood bath.

* * *

Some Notes From The Author

This fic was written as a response to people who flamed my fic "Stray" calling it too dark, disturbing, and inappropriate amongst other things, after I posted a chapter about Ezra eating out of a garbage can. They were fine with him doing drugs in the chapter before, but apparently eating from the garbage is flame worthy. The advice that my writing mentor gave me for dealing with people like that was to retaliate with content even more extreme, working it into the best story I could possibly write.

That turned out to be really good advice, because I've had so much fun writing this chapter, and planning a storyline where Ezra ends up walking down a very dark path, at points not even realizing how far into the dark he's going, and then later, often not caring. But at the same time not giving himself over to the Dark Side completely, because he has his own reasons not to, even though those reasons aren't necessarily the right ones.

This fic's name comes from the song "aLIEz" from the _Aldnoah Zero_ Soundtrack. Say what you will about that anime, the music they wrote for it was top of the line. And the lyrics of "aLIEz" fit how I'm trying to portray Ezra so well that in my mind, it's his theme song in this AU.

As a final note, this fic will be referencing and may contain spoilers for _Ezra's Gamble_ , an official junior novel set shortly before Spark of Rebellion, in which Ezra met Bossk the bounty hunter. And the little Afterwards piece at the end of this chapter was not an omake, it's part of the story.

Please leave a review on your way out. Flames will be used to blow up Imperial munitions.


	2. Chapter 2

Quick Author Note: The theme song for this chapter, and indeed for most scenes where Ezra and Luke are hanging out together, is _Renegades_ by X Ambassadors. So if you like listening to music while you're reading, this song is recommended. : D

* * *

 **Chapter Two:** Living Like We're Renegades

Luke Skywalker threw a rock at the canyon wall. He wanted to scream in frustration. Life was just not fair.

He wasn't supposed to be here all alone. It made him look like a friendless loser. But he guessed that was what he was, now that all his friends had left Tatooine and gone off to greener pastures.

The Imperial Academy. That was where they'd all gone. And in three years, Luke would be there too.

Three.

Whole.

Years.

That was like forever!

It just wasn't fair.

Luke threw another rock into the chasm and watched it clatter to the ground. That was what passed as fun on Tatooine these days, he supposed. He'd come there planning on racing his speeder through Beggar's Canyon, but there wasn't much point when there was no one left to race against. The rock he'd been watching reached the bottom of the canyon. But the sound of rocks falling continued.

He wasn't there alone.

Luke tensed, now on alert. There had been no word of Tusken Raiders in the vicinity lately, but that didn't mean one, or two, or more hadn't slipped through. He knew all too well how savage those monsters could be.

But even though he was alert, and even though he knew what might be out there, for some reason Luke didn't feel afraid. It was more like he'd been waiting for someone, but hadn't known it yet. So it was with more curiosity than anything else that he started looking around, trying to find the source of the noises.

It didn't take him long. It was only a few moments before he came into view, rising over the ridge on the same side of the canyon Luke was on.

He was a teenager, about the same age as Luke, maybe a little younger, because he was definitely a little shorter, and a lot skinnier. And he definitely wasn't from around here. His clothes weren't made for the heat of Tatooine's twin suns. They looked kind of military, but at the same time not, if that made sense. The backpack he was wearing definitely wasn't military, but he carried another bag slung over one shoulder that looked like it might be military issue. And if Luke wasn't mistaken, that was an Imperial pilot's helmet he had tucked under his arm.

Without warning, the stranger's legs buckled under him. He plummeted down the ridge, crying out in pain just as Luke cried out a warning and rushed forward.

"Ouch. Shit. Damn it," the strange teen growled, rolling so he was sitting up, and covering his face with one hand. "Araugh!

"Are you okay?" asked Luke, skidding to a stop right before him.

The other boy jumped and looked up at him startled. His eyes went round with confusion as he stared up at Luke for several moments, like he was trying to figure something out. Then he offered a tentative. "Hello?"

"Hello," Luke returned uncertainly, and asked again, "Are you okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah," the stranger said. "I'm just a little banged up."

Looking closer, Luke could see that was true. He had a burn mark on one cheek that looked fresh, and a bruise on the other cheek. From the way he was kind of cringing in on himself, Luke guessed he had a lot of other bruises too.

Looking even closer, Luke saw that the helmet the teen was carrying was actually dented over one of the cheeks. The one that would have been covering the teen's bruised cheek, if he'd been wearing the helmet when whatever happened to dent it happened. One of the eye pieces was cracked too.

"What happened?" asked Luke, kneeling down, trying to get a better idea of the extent of the teen's injuries.

"Believe me," the teen said, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you. And I'm too tired to come up with a convincing lie right now."

Luke blinked. "Okay. Er . . . do you need a doctor?"

"No, I'm alright. It's nothing life threatening," the teen said. He stared up at Luke, like he was debating something, then seemed to come to a conclusion, and he took a deep breath. "I'm Ezra, by the way. Ezra Bridger." And he held out one hand.

Luke took it, and shook it twice, then, even though he didn't think it was Ezra's intention for him to do what he did next, pulled Ezra to his feet. "Luke Skywalker. Pleased to meet you."

"You say that now," Ezra said teasingly and gave a pained sounding laugh.

"You . . . look like you're in a lot of pain," observed Luke. "Are you sure you don't need a doctor?"

"I'm sure."

"Or if it's the fees you're worried about, I could have my aunt take a look at you. She wouldn't charge anything. She'd not a trainer medic or anything, but she used to patch me and my friends up when we took a spill off our speeders."

Ezra looked at him a little incredulously then shook his head. Then he swayed dizzily. Luke grabbed his shoulder for support.

"No. I'm alright. I don't need a doctor or anything. But . . . is that your speeder there?"

"Huh?" Luke glanced at it. "Yeah. If you won't see a doctor, is there somewhere I can give you a lift to?"

"Maybe. Do you happen to know where the nearest spaceport is?"

Luke frowned. "You're out of luck. It's about fifty miles from here. Mos Eisley."

"Any chance I could get a lift there?" Ezra asked. "I can pay."

Luke's first instinct was to refuse. His uncle and aunt would be so mad at him if they found out he'd gone as far away as Mos Eisley without their permission. But on the other hand, Mos Eisley wasn't as far away as, say, the Imperial Academy where all Luke's friends had jetted off to while he had to wait around here another three years.

So spitefulness played a part in Luke's decision. But also because he didn't want to turn Ezra down. The smaller teen was clearly injured. Maybe not critically, but he was in a lot of pain, and wasn't dressed right for Tatooine. Luke didn't want to think about what kind of shape he'd be in if he actually tried walking to Mos Eisley.

Besides, there was something about Ezra. He was interesting. And he was an enigma. Luke bet that on the ride he could convince Ezra to tell him his story of how he'd ended up here. More than that, though, Luke felt almost like Ezra was a long lost friend. Almost like he knew him somehow, even though he knew that was ridiculous. The fact still remained that Ezra felt familiar.

"I can give you a lift if you pay for the fuel," said Luke. "There's not enough in the tank to make it there, so we better stop in Anchorhead."

"And where's that?"

"Just a few miles from here," said Luke. "You're really not from around here, are you?"

"Nope."

"Well, where are you planning on heading after I get you to the spaceport?"

"Anywhere but here," Ezra raid.

Luke paused. "You don't know where you're going?"

Ezra shook his head again, then grabbed his temple, once again regretting it. "Gotta remember to stop doing that. And no. I have no idea where I'm going next. I've just got to get off this planet as quickly as possible."

"Why?" asked Luke, stooping to pick up Ezra's helmet, which had fallen during his initial tumble down the ridge. Meanwhile Ezra picked up his side bag.

"I pissed the wrong people off, then left a trail leading 'em right here to me," said Ezra. "It's better if I'm gone before they can even show up looking for me."

"Oh." Luke's eyes went wider as something occurred to him. "Are you one of those rebels we've been hearing about on the holonews?"

"What?"

"You are, aren't you?" Luke grinned. "You're on the run from the Empire!"

He could tell by Ezra's expression that he'd got it in one. And it was so obvious now that he'd figured it out. Ezra's quasi-military style of dressing. The pilot helmet, obviously stolen from the Empire and reappropriated. And that special something in his bearing, like he was a fighter.

"I am on the run from the Empire," admitted Ezra, collapsing into the passenger seat of Luke's speeder. "But I'm not a rebel."

"What do you mean?" asked Luke. He didn't see how you could be one but not the other.

"I mean I think the Empire sucks and all, but I'm not part of some team fighting against it. I've met some of them. They're jerks," said Ezra. He suddenly looked bitter and muttered something.

"What?" asked Luke.

"I said they left me behind," Ezra said moodily. "I was helping some of them with something, as a one time thing, mind, you, I wasn't signing on with them. And they got in trouble, so I stupidly stuck my neck out for them and tried to help 'em. And I did help them. I saved a couple of their lives. And then I fell behind because one of them shoved me backwards, literally right into an ISB agent's hands, and they left me behind."

Luke felt a thrum of empathy. He knew exactly how it felt to be left behind. Well, maybe not in the hands of the Empire, but being left behind never felt good, no matter how it was done. And he felt disappointment about how those rebels had treated Ezra. But he had the feeling there was more to Ezra than just that.

"How'd you escape?" he wanted to know.

Ezra shook his head. "I told you, you won't believe me. I barely believe it myself and I lived through it."

"Oh come on," pressed Luke. "Tell me." He hopped into the driver's seat of his speeder. "I promise I'll believe you."

"You really won't."

"Please?" Luke begged.

Ezra considered a second then sighed. "After we get the fuel. I'll tell you on the way to the spaceport. I'm going to try to stay out of sight while you're getting the fuel. I don't want anyone remembering seeing you with a stranger later, if the Empire comes asking around. I don't want to get you in trouble."

* * *

Ezra got into the back of Luke's speeder before they drove into Anchorhead. Luke bought the fuel with the credit chips Ezra handed him. Ezra was careful to use smaller denominations so it wouldn't look suspicious if Luke needed change for a credit chip that was too big. He knew how things worked and was aware that a kid using a large denomination credit chip attracted attention. After they got out of town, Ezra climbed back into the passenger seat, gingerly minding all his various bruises.

Crashing that TIE fighter had done him no favors. He ached all over now, and had more bruises than he could count. It was entirely possible that he'd cracked a few ribs too. But that wouldn't be the first time. He'd live.

Luke listened with incredulity as Ezra recounted the day he'd had, starting from when he was thrown into that cell. He left out a couple things, like how the holocron he'd stolen from Mr. Tough Guy had opened up and that Kenobi guy's image had spoken to him. And the strange feelings he had that had guided his movements. Also, the part about how he'd suggested the pilot blow his own brains out, to which the pilot complied. Ezra was still a little freaked out about that. Instead he just said that he shot the pilot. It was close enough to the truth.

"Wow," Luke said, eyes shining when he was finished. "That's amazing. You're amazing."

"What's amazing is that you believed a word of it," said Ezra.

"It does sound unbelievable. But I don't think you're lying," said Luke. "There's something about you, I can't explain it, but I trust you."

Ordinarily, that would have earned Luke a scornful look and a missing wallet. But Ezra was too tired and sore to do any pickpocketing right now. Besides, he'd be lying if he said he didn't have that same feeling about Luke. It was stupid, he knew. Trusting someone he'd only just met. But his instincts were telling him that he could. The same kind of instinct that had gotten him out of that whole captured by the Empire mess alive, only just today.

Ezra was strongly beginning to suspect that those instincts were that Force thing Kenobi had been talking about. And maybe some of the other stuff he'd done or had happen to him too.

Like how he could jump so high. He knew it wasn't normal for a human to be able to leap higher than their own height, yet Ezra had on numerous occasions leapt double or triple his own height, sometimes even higher, like with the crate that morning.

And that weird vision thing he'd had right before he crashed the TIE. A key point in him deciding to tell Luke anything (aside from necessity, because he'd been walking for over an hour and Luke was the first damn person he'd seen on this rock) was that the blond teen in his vision had been Luke. And he hadn't even met Luke at the time of having that vision. He didn't completely understand it. But it seemed pretty damn likely to him that the Force was trying to tell him he could trust Luke.

And maybe . . . that they were going to be friends.

It had been a long time since Ezra had a friend. Moreena Krai and Ferpil Walladay had been the closest he'd had, since he lost his parents. Moreena had been his friend before his parents were taken away. She'd been the only friend from back then who stuck with him, until the day she moved to Alderaan. And Ferpil had taught him everything he knew about thieving and conning, given him work at his pawn shop, looked after him when he had no reason to. Without him, Ezra never would have learned how to survive.

Then that Imperial bastard had gone and murdered him.

Ezra's blood still boiled when he thought about that. Suddenly he didn't feel bad at all about convincing that dumb pilot to kill himself. The galaxy would be better off if all the Imperials just killed themselves.

Maybe those stupid rebels had the right idea about messing with the Empire. Not that Ezra planned on joining up with their cause or anything, because let's face it. There wasn't a damn thing about any of them that he could trust. But sticking another pin into the Empire's side, and driving them up more walls with his own brand of lunacy, well maybe Ezra would try some of that again in the future. It could be fun.

Maybe Luke could come along for the ride. His mind flashed back to that scene from his vision, where he and Luke had both pulled out lightsabers in tandem, then proceeded to beat the ever living daylights out of several squads of stormtroopers.

Suddenly, and completely unexpectedly, Ezra found himself desperately wanting that scene to come true. That one and all the others. Racing across rooftops, diving through heavy traffic. And joking and drinking in a cantina together. That last one, where Ezra had the yellow eyes, well, he didn't even know how someone went about doing that to their eyes. Maybe he got alien retinas transplanted into his own? Or some kind of animal? To see better in the dark maybe? Or to replace parts of his eyes that got damaged somehow? That would take money, but, as he already knew, stealing from the Empire could be a profitable venture. Well, whatever. He was sure there would be a good reason for him to get surgery on his eyes if that ever happened. And the memory of the power he'd had in that last part of his vision . . .

Just the idea of the kind of power he'd seen himself and Luke using all throughout his vision was intoxicating. If that was the kind of power the Force could give him, Ezra needed to find out more about it.

But how?

A Jedi could teach him. But the problem with that line of thinking was that the Empire had killed all the Jedi. Maybe a couple had survived, but they would only have been able to do so by hiding.

Briefly, Ezra wondered if Mr. Tough Guy could possibly have been a Jedi. But he stopped wondering because even if he had been, that didn't matter. Going to see that guy about it wasn't an option. Ezra wouldn't have trusted him. And Mr. Tough Guy wouldn't have been very happy with him after he suggested to Muscles the Hairless Wookiee that he should take a long walk out of a short airlock, the way he'd suggested to the idiot pilot that he should shoot himself in the head.

So what then? How to find out about this Force thing?

The holonet was out. The Empire had scrubbed tons of information from it, blotting out large chunks of the past, the Old Republic, and probably everything to do with the Jedi.

Maybe Ezra could get more information off the holocron if he tried fiddling with it again.

Maybe there were other holocrons or things like them out there.

Ezra sat up straighter as he realized that was the answer. The Empire had only wiped information about the Jedi off the holonet, and taken it out of any public archive. But they couldn't wipe all records of them out of peoples' private collections. There were bound to be datapads and hard copies of holo-recordings still out there. Old tech, pre-Empire stuff. The kind of stuff you'd find in pawnshops or junk shops.

"Do you know what you're going to do once you get off world?" asked Luke, breaking the silence that had drifted between the two. "Are you going to try to make your way back to your home world?"

"I don't know yet," said Ezra. Then, even though he knew it was selfish, he couldn't resist asking, "What about you?"

"What do you mean? What about me?" Luke asked.

"You plan on staying on this rock your whole life?" Ezra asked. "I've only been here a couple hours, so I obviously haven't seen everything yet, but to me it seems like there's not a lot here. Ever thought of leaving?"

"Only every day," said Luke. Suddenly he looked bitter.

"What's keeping you?" asked Ezra. "Family?"

"Yeah. My aunt and uncle," said Luke. "Mainly my uncle. All my friends have gone off to the Imperial Academy. I wanted to go with them. Not because I like the Empire, but because that would be my only way off this planet. We always talked about running off from the academy and joining up with the rebels. My friends are probably doing that right now. But my uncle won't let me go. He says in three years he'll let me, but I know he's just going to put it off again."

Ezra stared at the blur of the horizon. An aunt and an uncle, huh? Which most likely meant no parents. Ezra wasn't going to ask, though, because that was one of those questions he hated answering himself.

"If you got a chance to leave, would you?" asked Ezra.

"What, you mean like run away?" asked Luke. "I've thought about it. But where would I go? And how would I get by? I've got no money."

"Hm. Yeah. I know how that is," said Ezra. Not that he'd ever really seriously considered leaving Lothal before today. Moreena had broached the subject to him in their last conversation before she left for Alderaan. But even though Lothal hadn't been perfect, it was all he'd ever known. And it was where he could survive using what he knew. He'd had no reason to really want to leave.

Now he didn't have a whole lot of reasons to want to go back. And for once he had money, and lots of it. He had more than enough to get himself off world. More than enough to get him and Luke both off world several times over.

But the question was whether or not he should suggest that.

There were a million reasons not to. Not least among them that Ezra had no tangible reason to trust Luke beyond his instincts, and that Luke had no reason at all to trust Ezra. An offer like the one Ezra wanted to make to him should have set off warning bells in any intelligent person. But Ezra was actually half afraid they wouldn't in Luke. The other teen seemed nice enough, but at the same time naïve. He'd been way too trusting of Ezra so far, and never shown even a shade of suspicion. That was worrying in its own way.

Ezra tried to feel for his instincts, looking for answers there, but none came. If the Force was what was responsible for them, it was being silent now.

I'll wait then, Ezra decided. There was no need to rush this. Maybe Luke would even breach the subject himself if he framed the conversation right.

He felt a rush of guilt at the idea of manipulating his new acquaintance. Encouraging a kid to run away from home, even using an invisible hand, wasn't exactly a good thing. Normally Ezra wouldn't have even considered it because normally there wouldn't be any benefit for him to do that. But if Luke was going to become a friend to him, like in his vision, wasn't that all the more reason not to try to make him run away from home and leave his family behind? That wasn't exactly in Luke's best interest.

Honestly, Ezra didn't know what he was going to do. And the time for him to make a decision was growing shorter every minute.

"Hey, question," said Ezra, to distract himself from his approaching time limit. "Are there a lot of junk shops, and pawn shops, and places like that in Mos Eisley?"

"Yeah," said Luke. "But you might find more in Mos Espa. But that's even further away. Like a full day's trip."

"What's Mos Espa like?"

"Mm, it's pretty decrepit and getting worse all the time. It used to be a thriving space port that hosted big pod races every year before the Empire put a token presence on Tatooine and decided to ban them. Now their only business is in junk trading, and Tusken Raiders are thick in that area, so it's sinking into decay."

"So there's a lot of pre-Empire stuff there?" asked Ezra.

Luke looked at him sideways. "Are you looking for something in particular?"

"Some stuff in particular, but I don't really know what," Ezra answered.

Luke smiled. "You're a weird guy, Ezra."

"Yep."

Ezra smiled too. So, he had a reason to come back to Tatooine. A legitimate one. What better place to look for old tech than a decaying city whose main trade was the junk business? He couldn't go now, obviously. He knew how things worked. The Empire was going to swarm this planet and try to smoke him out.

He'd seen it happen a few times on Lothal, when there were fugitives from the Empire that they really wanted found. They'd tighten their grip on this planet and all its small settlements, shut down everything they could, and stop all off world traffic, until they either caught Ezra, or decided that he'd slipped through their greedy, sweaty fingers.

Generally that only took about two weeks. Ezra decided it would be better to play it safe and stay away for four. He'd change his appearance a little, maybe dye his unusual blue hair to a more common shade like brown or black, then head back to Tatooine, to Mos Espa. And sometime when he was back on this rock he could swing by and visit Luke.

That was as much of a plan as Ezra thought would be good to make now. Who knew what would happen between now and then?

* * *

Luke would have taken him directly to the space port. Ezra had him park his speeder near a cantina then dragged him inside instead.

"Space ports aren't where transactions are made," Ezra said. He may never have been off Lothal before, but he knew his way around several of the space ports there, and a great many more cantinas. "Pilots don't hang out in their ships after they dock, unless they're sleeping or running maintenance."

"Are you sure we should be in here?" asked Luke quietly. "It looks kind of dangerous here."

Despite the band playing a jaunty tune off to the side, Luke's words were true. This cantina was the kind of place that literally screamed bad element. As far as Ezra could tell it was the middle of the afternoon in this time zone, but the cantina had a bustling business. Spacers from a couple dozen different races were all mixed together, and every one of them looked like they'd be willing to crush someone's throat for a dare, without even getting drunk first.

"It is dangerous in here," Ezra said, "but you don't have to come if you don't want."

"Are you kidding? This is the most fun I've had since all my friends left," said Luke.

"Stick with me, kid, and we'll have lots more fun times." The words were out of Ezra's mouth before he could stop to think about them.

"Yeah. That'll be real easy since you're leaving too," huffed Luke, sounding suddenly bitter.

"I'm thinking about coming back," Ezra admitted. He was careful to keep his voice low, but knew that it could very well be a futile effort. In a place like this, there was always someone with ears that were good enough to hear even the softest whispers. But no matter how good they were, they couldn't hear everything. The trick was to speak softly, but not like you had something to hide.

"Coming back? Why? When?" Luke's expression went from surprised and happy to sour. "In like five years?"

"More like five weeks max," Ezra said, "as long as things are going alright and settle down enough."

"Why?"

"To look through junk," Ezra said. "For that in particular stuff I didn't tell you about."

"I could come with you," Luke immediately volunteered. "When you come back, that is. I know my way around Mos Espa. Well, I haven't been there in a few harvests, but I used to go there with my uncle to get deals on farming equipment. I could help you with whatever you're looking for."

"I'll take you up on that," Ezra said. "But for now I gotta find a way off this rock."

Luke suddenly looked downcast.

"I'm not brushing you off, Luke," said Ezra, seeing this.

"Yeah you are. I know a brush off when I hear one. If you really had any intention of doing that, you'd be asking how to find me again when you come back," said Luke.

"I already know how to find you."

"Oh really? News flash, I don't live at Beggar's Canyon. And I don't go there every day. So if camping out there was your plan –"

"It wasn't," said Ezra. "Look, I know your name, I know the closest town to where you live, and I know what your family does for a living. And I know how to talk to people to get them to tell me what I want. If you believed the story I told you about how my day's gone so far, you know how resourceful I can be."

"Oh. Right." Luke seemed a bit mollified then looked a little embarrassed.

Ezra led them over to the bar and ordered drinks, then slipped the barkeep a couple extra credits for information. "I'm looking for passage off this rock. Private transport if possible, for my cousin and me. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, just fast. Know anyone?"

Luke looked confused and opened his mouth. Ezra elbowed him to keep quiet.

This was not that scene from his vision playing out, he knew. This wasn't even the same cantina. And he and Luke weren't the kind of friends that they'd been in his vision, yet. Luke was still too damn naïve for one thing. He was cautiously sipping the drink Ezra ordered for him, like he'd never had alcohol before. Ezra kind of wanted to face palm, but knew even that would attract attention.

The barkeep pointed out a few pilots. Smugglers, mostly by the looks of them. One in particular caught Ezra's eye. Mainly because he was keeping company with a Wookiee, but also because he was only a few years older than Ezra himself.

 _Oh, that right there is trouble,_ Ezra thought, deliberately heading toward one of the other pilots the barkeep recommended. Because anytime now the Empire's airwaves would be abuzz with news of escaped Wookiees, and the teenager who freed them and jacked a Star Destroyer. _I best stay far, far away from those two._

"Why did you tell him that?" asked Luke.

Ezra blinked and his mind had to backtrack. "That you're my cousin? Cover story."

"That you were looking for passage for me too?"

Ezra smirked. "I thought you wanted off this rock."

"Yeah, I do, but – but I don't – I can't just –"

"Relax," said Ezra. "Seriously. You get flustered, people notice. People notice, you get problems. And I told him I was looking for passage for both of us because if someone comes around asking, two teenage cousins trying to book passage will throw them off my trail. One teenager trying to buy passage for himself alone, not so much."

"Oh. I get it now."

Yeah, Luke had a lot to learn.

But something else was nagging Ezra now, every step they drew further away from the teenage pilot and his Wookiee friend. That something being Ezra's annoying conscience. Every step further away from them seemed a little heavier, until Ezra realized that this was going to weigh on him until he did something.

"Damn me," he muttered.

"What?" asked Luke as he changed directions. "What?"

"Something I gotta do," Ezra said. "Stupid though it is."

Luke followed him, looking bewildered. Nothing new about that, it seemed to be Luke's default setting. The teenage pilot looked up, a little bit curious, and a little bit annoyed when Ezra stopped right by his table and leaned in.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"A quick word," Ezra said. "Luke, sit down and drink your drink. Act like we're discussing business. And try to look like this isn't your first time drinking alcohol. _Stop_ making that face."

"This stuff doesn't taste as good as I thought it would," muttered Luke, but he obeyed Ezra.

"What's going on?" the teenage pilot asked again. He moved slightly in his seat and Ezra could tell he had a blaster pointed at him under the table.

"I wanted to offer a quick warning about something I just heard," said Ezra, looking between the pilot and the Wookiee. "Earlier today, an Imperial Star Destroyer got hijacked and was used to rescue a couple dozen Wookiee slaves from the spice mines of Kessel. Latest news was that the Star Destroyer ended up in this system and that the Wookiees and the hijackers split up into smaller groups and scattered."

"And we care about this . . . why?" asked the pilot, but it was clear he had at least an inkling. He struck Ezra as the kind of guy who knew his way around a place like this.

"Word has it that one of those hijackers, the one who caused the most problems, was a teenager," Ezra said.

"I don't know anything about that," the pilot said. He glared at Ezra like he was thinking of shooting him, which, Ezra had to admit, would be a reasonable thing for him to do. For all this guy knew, Ezra could be a snitch, or this could be some lame attempt at blackmail. Or even just a distraction while a couple real bounty hunters got ready to close in.

"I don't care. Whether you're a hijacker with an escaped Wookiee or not, it's no difference to me. I just thought I'd pass along the warning," said Ezra. "Because if it's true, and the Empire's about to start squeezing this planet, I thought you could use a heads up. No one deserves to have something like that sprung on them with no warning."

The pilot stared hard at him. Ezra met his eyes and stared right back. At last the pilot nodded and Ezra could tell he believed him. More than that, he was going to take the warning to heart.

"Well then, I guess we best make ourselves scarce in these parts for awhile," the pilot said. He stood. "Come on, Chewie."

The Wookie warbled something. Then they left without another word.

"You're welcome," Luke said as they brushed passed them.

Ezra huffed out a short laugh and stood too. "Alright. Now that that's taken care of, let's –"

Something was about to happen. Ezra sensed it coming, just like he'd sensed the Star Destroyer earlier that day before it came out of hyperspace.

But before he could move, before he could do anything, Luke had already tackled him to the floor, beneath the table.

Less than a second after they hit the ground, the cantina wall exploded. Ezra felt the heat of flames nearby, and heard the rain of debris crashing down all around them. Dust hung heavily in the air.

A smirk pulled at Ezra's mouth. "Good reflexes," he remarked to Luke, who was still wincing against the noise.

In his mind, his thoughts were moving faster. Luke had sensed the explosion before Ezra had. Ezra wasn't surprised. To him that was proof that Luke had this Force thing too. His vision had showed him as much, but he still was glad to get confirmation with his own eyes.

Now if he just knew what the hell was happening here. Surely the Empire hadn't taken to blowing out cantina walls when they could more easily flood a place with stormtroopers to arrest someone. So what did that leave?

"Are you alright?" asked Luke, wide eyed now, looking even more bewildered than he had anytime previously since they'd met.

"I'm fine," said Ezra. "You?"

"I think so. What's going on?"

They stood up from behind the safety of the table that had shielded them to behold a scene of carnage.

One of the cantina's walls had been blasted out, leaving a gaping hole. The explosion had taken out a wide radius around it. Bodies lay strewn all between the blasted out wall and the bar, some just injured, others clearly dead, some even cooked through and through. Ezra and Luke were the only two people between the blast and the bar to have come through unscathed. Even people further away than the bar had taken injuries.

The pilot and his Wookiee friend had been far enough that they didn't get hit. Ezra saw them over near the entrance, staring at the mess with the same shock Ezra himself was feeling. They locked eyes, and Ezra could see the pilot was debating coming back to help.

"Idiot!" Ezra mouthed to him, not speaking the words aloud, but trusting that the pilot would get the gist, if not the whole meaning by lip reading. "Get out of here!"

For a second the pilot looked torn, and Ezra realized that he had found a kindred spirit who knew that the smart thing to do was to take care of himself, but who was also plagued by a conscience. Then the pilot broke eye contact and grabbed his friend, hustling him out of the cantina.

Ezra felt a thrum of approval and a little regret, knowing they'd probably never meet again. Too bad. But right now he had bigger things to worry about. For right at that moment, a familiar Trandoshan was flung through the hole in the cantina wall and crashed to the floor, skidding into a corpse and then a broken table.

"Bossk?"

"What?" asked Luke. "What's going – there's a fight outside?"

Ezra saw then that was true. He'd been captivated by the destruction but now that he was past that, he saw that there was a fight going on outside. Blast fire and flames were clashing. And that still didn't explain why a bounty hunter had just come flying in.

A really unsavory looking alien of a species Ezra didn't recognize stepped through the blasted wall and aimed a really big blaster rifle at the downed Trandoshan. Ezra reacted without thinking. One of his new blasters was in his hand before he knew it. The bolt he shot hit the unknown alien in the chest. It dropped its gun and went down without a sound.

"Ezra!" Luke sounded shocked.

"Stay back," ordered Ezra. "And stay down!"

Then he himself darted out from behind the safety of their table. It didn't occur to him until he reached Bossk's side that this was a horrible idea, and that he had absolutely no reason to be doing this. When it did occur to him, Ezra grit his teeth in frustration. But he was already there, so . . .

"Bossk! Mr. Bossk! Hey! Wake up!" Ezra slapped the Trandoshan's face, trying to rouse him.

Groggily, Bossk opened his eyes. He looked at Ezra in confusion. "Shorty? What are you doing here?"

"Trying to save your sorry ass, apparently!" snapped Ezra. "Now get up!"

Before Bossk could, someone else barreled through the blasted out wall, hovering several feet above the ground on a jetpack. He'd backed in, and was firing out the wall, covering his retreat, but quickly turned, took in the sight of Ezra crouching over Bossk, and aimed his blasters at him.

Ezra's blaster came up to, but he didn't fire. Yet. Even though he had blasters aimed at him, his instincts told him not to. Their standoff lasted only a second. It seemed a lot longer.

Then Bossk was yanking Ezra around like he had in their last little misadventure, back on Lothal, pulling him out of the line of fire without really putting himself at risk.

"Don't shoot this one, Boba," Bossk said. "He's a little useful."

More people were coming in through the blasted wall. More bounty hunters, Ezra realized. A couple droids, another human, and one other alien. All of them guns blazing.

"Hey Mr. Bossk. Mind telling me why your friends are shooting up the street and blowing up cantinas?" asked Ezra.

"Shorty," said Bossk, ill temperedly, "I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain. Now come on!"

Ezra hesitated. Luke was suddenly by his side.

"Ezra, we need to get out of here," he said frantically.

Then Ezra felt it. And he agreed. More trouble was on the way if they stayed here. His instincts were screaming it. "Alright. Let's go."

Bossk gave Luke a dubious look, taking in the local attire, and how young he was, and clearly wondering who the hell this was, but it seemed he didn't have time to ask questions either. He practically manhandled Ezra to the door, even though Ezra would have come without being dragged and he was sure Bossk knew it. They made it out of the cantina.

And stepped into another war zone.

"Wh-what's going on?" Luke asked.

"We'll ask Mr. Bossk sometime after he has time to explain why he doesn't have time to explain," said Ezra. "But for now, let's just take a guess and say there's a riot going on."

It looked like a battle in the streets, being waged between mercenaries. Some of them might have been bounty hunters like Bossk and the crew he seemed to be with. Others looked like street thugs and gangsters.

"Bossk, what're you bringing kids with us for?" demanded one of Bossk's friends.

"Shut up, Dengar! Like I already told Boba, Shorty here's useful! And since we're in a bit of a bind, I thought we could use another useful person about now!" hissed Bossk.

"Well that explains Blue but not Blondie," said Dengar.

"He's with me," said Ezra, meeting Dengar's gaze, even though the man was far older and a lot more muscular than him, and probably knew about a billion ways to kill him. "Now are we going to keep falling back, which is what you lot seemed to be doing, or is there another plan of action we're going to take?"

"We're falling back," said Boba, sounding annoyed with all of them. "Keep moving!"

"Stay close," Ezra said, reaching out to grab Luke, to keep him moving with them. He pulled out his other blaster and pressed it into Luke's hand.

"My uncle's going to kill me," Luke muttered, a bit hysterically as he followed.

"Focus on staying alive until then at least," suggested Ezra.

"We're really bringing along kids who are afraid of getting in trouble with their parents?" muttered Dengar.

They got into a fire fight before anyone sniped out anymore remarks. A pathetic little ambush was waiting for them right as they rounded a corner. Ezra was already firing as he turned that corner. So was another of the bounty hunters, the alien who looked like he was probably a Gand by his armor. Boba was the next to start shooting. It didn't take them long to clear out the minor road block.

"I don't want to hear any more about the kids unless they're causing problems," Boba snapped, kicking aside a corpse as they continued on their way. "They pull their weight, they can stay. They fall behind, they get left behind. Them and anyone else who falls behind."

What Boba said clearly carried weight with this group. No one argued. Not, Ezra thought, that anyone who had just seen his shooting would have had anything to argue about anyway. Seeing that had probably been a major part of what caused Boba to give this verdict.

"Why are we going with them again?" Luke asked softly, sticking even closer to Ezra.

"Because there's a riot going on," Ezra said, even though he didn't think anyone should need to be reminded of that when they were in the middle of it.

"We should ditch them," Luke whispered. "Get back to my speeder and get the heck out of here!"

Ezra gave him a sidelong look. "Ever been in a riot before?"

"What? Well, no, but –"

"I have. So believe me when I say they're dangerous. Anyone might attack anyone else for any reason. Or no reason. All rationality flies out the window. There's looting, and arson everywhere. Streets are blocked off, speeders wrecked. Or blown up. You wouldn't make it out of the city on your speeder," said Ezra softly. "The safest thing we can do right now is stick with them."

Actually, if Ezra had been alone, he'd have had a second option. He was confident in his ability to survive a riot on his own. He just had to run and hide the way only a loth-rat could. Even in an unfamiliar city like this, there were plenty of scalable walls and buildings, roofs to escape to, alley ways with nooks and crannies to hide in until things boiled over.

But Luke would never survive this on his own. Ezra would bet his last credit on that. Luke had good instincts. He'd seen as much already in their brief time together. And he probably had the Force on his side too. But Luke had grown up on a farm, doing honest work, with his family. He didn't know how to survive when everyone was trying to kill everyone else.

And Ezra was not going to leave him to die. So their best bet was to stick with this very dangerous group of thugs who were better at killing people than the average thug on these streets.

It quickly became clear that they were carving their way to the space port. That was a very good way to go, in Ezra's opinion. He might not even have to pay for passage off this rock. Though getting Luke back would be a headache. Well, they could worry about that on the next rock. What mattered now was surviving by getting out of this mess.

* * *

At the entrance of the space port they got into another fire fight, this one more intense than any of the smaller skirmishes they'd been in on the way.

Luke couldn't help feeling like he was in over his head. He stuck as close to Ezra as he could, set the blaster Ezra had given him to stun, and fired off a bunch of bolts, but didn't think he hit much. He couldn't concentrate enough to aim. There was so much chaos all around them. He didn't even know why these people were shooting at them, and had the feeling those people didn't even know themselves.

Ezra though, he was amazing. Luke had known that from the story he'd told, which he had believed entirely, because if he was going to lie, he'd have at least made up a realistic story. But seeing Ezra in action was something else entirely.

The term calm under fire came to mind. It seemed like every shot he made dropped an enemy. He didn't fire wildly, like most of the ones against them and even some of their bounty hunter allies were doing. Even though chaos rained all around them, Ezra picked his shots coolly, and ducked at all the right times.

Suddenly, Luke saw a muscle in Ezra's face tense, and then he shouted out, "Sniper! On the roof!" He switched his aim upward, but his shot ended up being one of his rare misses, glancing off a piece of the stone roofing that the Rodian on the roof was hiding behind.

The Rodian got off a shot before Luke or any of the bounty hunters could manage one. And he'd clearly decided to target the person who had so far been the biggest threat to him. If Ezra hadn't moved, he would have taken a blaster bolt straight to his chest.

"Blue, take down the sniper!" Boba snapped out. "Everyone else focus on the meat on the ground!"

"Easier said than done," growled Ezra, firing off another shot. But the sniper had taken cover.

Luke's instincts suddenly went on high alert. "Look out!" he shouted, without knowing why.

Then, something went lolling out from behind the stone crenel that the Rodian sniper was hiding behind. Instantly, Luke knew that was the source of his worries, but he didn't even know what it was. In a glimpse he saw that it was round and blinking with a tiny red light.

"I see it!" Ezra shouted in answer, then took aim.

His next shot hit the round thing, which exploded in a burst of flame twelve feet in diameter.

Luke paled. The Rodian had thrown a detonator at them? If it had reached them it would have killed them all. "N-nice shot," he managed to say.

"Yeah. Well not as nice as this one. Hold this."

Ezra shoved his side bag into Luke's arms. Then suddenly Ezra was up and running.

"Hey! Shorty!" shouted Bossk as Ezra charged through their enemies' blaster fire, somehow managing to not get hit. There weren't as many people barring their entrance from the spaceport left. But those left were all firing wildly. Yet somehow Ezra didn't get hit. It was like he knew where the blasts were going to be and found a safe path through them.

Then, putting on a burst of speed, he leapt into the air. It was like he had taken flight. In a single bound, Ezra soared all the way up to the rooftop, did a single front flip, then landed right behind the crenel, light as a loth-cat on his feet. He raised his blaster and fired once.

Luke didn't see exactly what happened. The stone crenel was in his way. But from the blood splatter he saw burst out from behind the crenel, he knew Ezra had shot the Rodian in the head point blank.

Ezra then knelt and disappeared behind the stone for a moment. Then a moment later he stood and strode to the edge of the roof. In his hand, he held something round and blinking. He waited several seconds, as the blinking of the light accelerated. Then he knelt at the roof's edge and tossed the detonator beneath the roof, angling it toward the rioters. It exploded right when it had dropped to the level their faces were at and leveled them all.

"See, what did I tell you? Shorty's a little useful, at least," Bossk said, looking smug.

"Zussack thinks he's a bit more than that," said the Gand bounty hunter in their group. Something about his tone made Luke feel nervous on his friend's behalf, like the Gand had just figured something out about Ezra.

Hopefully not what the first half of Ezra's day had been spent doing.

"Blue, can you fly a ship or man a ship's gun station?" demanded Boba as they moved forward and reached Ezra.

"I can fly and shoot," Luke said quickly, eager to contribute and annoyed that the bounty hunter leader hadn't asked him, completely discounting him. He might not have been as useful as Ezra so far but that was no reason to ignore him!

"I can shoot," Ezra said. "And fly in a pinch. But Luke's a much better pilot than me."

Luke gave him a grateful look, but Ezra wasn't looking in his direction. He was staring confidently at Boba's face, right at the visor his eyes were behind, the nearest thing to meeting his eyes that he could. No one looking at him could tell that he'd never seen Luke fly a ship before. But even still, he wasn't exactly lying. Luke was an excellent pilot.

"You two, come with me and Bossk. Everyone else, to Dengar's ship," Boba ordered. "We'll meet up at the palace."

"Palace?" Luke asked, not really expecting an answer. He still didn't really know what was going on, or why everyone was trying to kill them and the bounty hunters. Though to be fair to the bounty hunters, it did seem more like everyone was trying to kill everyone else, _including_ the bounty hunters. Not just exclusively targeting them.

"I'm sure we'll figure it out soon enough," said Ezra. "Maybe on the ship Bossk will have time to explain. Or at least explain why he doesn't have time to explain."

"Shorty, don't make me smack that smirk off your face," Bossk warned.

"You have time to smack me but not explain what's going on? Priorities, Mr. Bossk," Ezra teased. "Do you have them?"

More might have been said, except at that moment Ezra shot right over Bossk's shoulder, taking down another rioter with a slug shooter who'd been taking aim at them.

"Move out," ordered Boba, leading the way for their group.

"Are we going to your ship, Mr. Bossk? Don't forget to disarm your ship's weapons system so it doesn't kill us," said Ezra. Luke really wondered how Ezra had met this bounty hunter. He had the feeling the story was just as crazy as his Star Destroyer hijacking one. Well, not just as. But maybe almost that crazy.

"Don't worry, shorty. You're useful enough to keep alive for now," Bossk said, shoving him forward.

"You ok, Luke?" asked Ezra as they hurried to the ship, not meeting anymore opposition.

"Yeah. Still confused and not sure what we're doing, but I haven't been shot yet," said Luke.

"Well, that's something," Ezra said, slapping his shoulder as they hurried forward.

They reached a bay holding a ship called the Hound's Tooth, which turned out to be their destination. Ezra hung back warily until Boba moved toward the ship, gave Luke a warning look, then cautiously advanced too. After a few steps, he apparently decided that the defense system had been deactivated and he nodded to Luke who boarded the ship right behind him.

"Bossk, get us in the air!" Boba ordered, and the Trandoshan hastily hurried to the cockpit.

"So . . . is there time for an explanation about what's going on right now?" asked Ezra. "Or do you guys even know?"

"Oh, we know what's going on," chortled Bossk as he powered up his ship. "The Empire's put a bounty on Jabba's head and we mean to collect it."

"Unfortunately Jabba wants to keep his head," Boba said. "And it looks like he's mobilized every bit of scum working for him in the city. Then there's plenty of people in this cesspool that don't need an excuse to bring chaos."

"Are you serious?" demanded Luke.

"What do you think all that bantha crap down there was, kid?" demanded Boba.

"No, not the part about him mobilizing his goons, and a bunch of other criminals joining in," said Luke. "The part about the Empire putting a bounty on his head! You're talking about Jabba the Hutt, right?"

"You know of another Jabba worth talking about?" Boba asked dryly.

"No, but – but – what did he do?" Luke wanted to know.

"Well, the original bounty notice said he hijacked a Star Destroyer," said Bossk, and he laughed. "The updated one said he went and freed a bunch of slaves from a spice mine. Now _that_ is a riot."

Luke's jaw hung slack. He turned and stared incredulously at Ezra. Ezra shook his head frantically, trying to urge him to stay silent. Luke just stared at him and tried to figure out how the heck Jabba the Hutt had ended up taking the blame for Ezra's crimes.

"We were scouting out the city, taking stock of the situation, but it looks like Jabba got tipped off long before we got here," said Boba.

"Which means he'll have retreated to his palace, like a wamp-rat running back to its den at the sight of a bigger rat," Bossk said. "We're heading there now to storm the place."

Luke gritted his teeth and looked at Ezra again.

Ezra looked uncertain, but when he saw Luke looking to him for guidance, or assurance, or just something, even Luke wasn't sure what, Ezra spoke up. "So we're along . . . for moral support? Or because you need mascots?"

"You're here for air support," Boba said. "Blue on guns. Blondie at the helm. Bossk and I will be going in, along with some of the team on the other ship. They'll sort out who they send and who stays. You get us close and provide cover fire while we get into the building. Then you hang close, shoot down anyone who's shooting at you, be ready to help us make a quick getaway, and do whatever else we tell you if we give you orders on the comms."

"And don't even think about making off with my ship," growled Bossk. "Or I'll hunt you down and skin you."

Ezra guffawed. "What, you mean you don't trust me, Mr. Bossk? After all we've been through?"

"That's exactly why I don't trust you, Shorty," Bossk said, but Luke could see he didn't really mean it. It looked more like he was warning them not to steal his ship as a formality than out of any real worry.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who screwed you over in the end," said Ezra. "I'm the one who should be suspicious. Speaking of which. What's in this for us?"

"You'll get a cut of the bounty," Boba said.

"How big a cut?" Ezra demanded.

"Ten percent."

"Each?" Ezra asked, eyes narrowed.

"No. The two of you together."

"Each."

"No." Boba sounded very annoyed now. "You're the rookies here. You've done the least amount of work on this op anyway. Ten percent of the bounty, shared by the two of you. No more."

"One thing more," said Ezra. "Passage off this rock once the job is done. For both of us."

"Passage to where?" asked Bossk. "You want to go home to –"

"No," Ezra cut him off. "Or if you're going there, fine. Anywhere that the Empire isn't going to be cracking down on for rioting is fine. We'd rather not stay here while the Empire is slapping down curfews and keeping a sharp eye on everything."

"Deal," Boba said.

Luke shifted uncomfortably. "I don't want –"

"Don't worry," Ezra said. "If we end up on another rock that doesn't even have decent caf, we'll just jump to another. Trust me on this, Luke."

"Alright," said Luke, hoping he wouldn't regret it. And that he had correctly interpreted Ezra's meaning, that he was lying for their cover story, and Luke wouldn't have to leave the planet. He was already going to be in so much trouble with his uncle for just happening to come to Mos Eisley when there was a riot going on. But for some reason, he didn't actually regret that.

The experience so far had been surreal, but at the same time, exhilarating. He didn't know how much he liked battle, but he couldn't say he hadn't enjoyed fighting by Ezra's side. It felt almost like he belonged there at Ezra's side. Like they were meant to meet. Meet and become friends.

He had to admit to himself that he didn't want their adventure to end here. And he didn't think it was going to. Because one thing was for sure. After living through this, there was no way he could slip back into the life of moisture farming and waiting around for three years to get off this rock.

"Give Blondie an overview of the controls, Bossk," Boba said. "I'll show Blue the gunner station."

"We have names you know," Luke couldn't help snapping. "And they aren't Blondie and Blue."

"Then show us why your names are worth remembering, Blondie," Boba shot back. "Impress us."

Luke gritted his teeth and moved to look over Bossk's shoulders at the control. He'd show these stupid bounty hunters. He was the best damn pilot in the Outer Rim. He'd show these guys exactly what he could do.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed Chapter 2! I'll try to be faster about writing and posting the next one. I've got winter break coming up so I'll have more free time. :)

Thank you for all your reviews so far! I don't want to give away too much of what I have plotted for this fic, but I do want to respond to a few of you guys, so you know I am reading all your reviews and appreciating them. : D

Specter14: Ezra is going to run into the crew of the Ghost again, but not for a few more chapters. They aren't aware that he was behind that crazy Star Destroyer hijacking yet. They'll find out someday but probably not in their next meeting. Because they're a little busy trying not to die and won't have time to swap stories then. : p

Trypy: Thank you very much. :) And Ezra really is not happy at all with the crew of the Ghost. He's not actively out for reveange against them at this time, but he sees them more as enemies than allies, and wouldn't mind getting even with them if the opportunity presents itself. Kanan would be wise to be scared.

Fadinglight13: I'm glad you approve of Ezra and Luke being bros. :D I think they'll balance each other out well. Luke's a little naïve, where Ezra knows far too much. Ezra has good in him, but has a hard time letting it show. Luke is unwavering in trying to do what's right and brings out the best in Ezra, even if only in quick glimpses. Ezra has the potential to go very dark, but Luke will be what anchors him. In return, Ezra will keep Luke alive and stand between him and any threat, no matter how powerful it may be.

RadicalCat: I agree with what you said about Ezra in Ezra's Gamble. That was what I was aiming for when I wrote him. I think that the crew of the Ghost has changed him, and that without them he would have become someone very different. That different person is who I'm trying to write him as now.

Sunlight Sonata: That's the version of the song I prefer too, and yes, the lyrics are very foreshadowing for my fic, especially in the long term. You're right to find those lines chilling, lol. I loved your description of dark!Ezra, btw.

Destiny: Challenge accepted.

Please leave a review on your way out. Flames are insignificant next to the power of the Force.


	3. Chapter 3

This chapter is dedicated to all the other poor souls who don't have tickets for the opening night of The Force Awakens. I feel your pain. I too am home with no tickets. The Force is clearly not strong with me. As such, there are no spoilers for The Force Awakens in this chapter.

Not that there would be anyway, because this takes place before the original trilogy, not to mention that Ezra's effectively crushed the normal timeline/canon so far that now the original trilogy can't even happen the way it was supposed to. We are definitely moving into Alternate Universe territory. :)

* * *

Chapter Three: Allies

Luke waited until they made it to Jabba's palace and let Bossk and Boba off. He had to tolerate a few threats from Bossk, about what would happen if he crashed his ship or made off with it, and a few more insults about his hair color from Boba, but finally, they were gone and Luke had sole control of the helm.

Then he couldn't hold back his question anymore. He switched the comm that Bossk had clamped to his wrist to mute, so that the bounty hunters wouldn't overhear, then called back to Ezra, who was close enough to hear him without the comm.

"Hey Ezra. I've got a question?"

Ezra had to know the question burning on his lips. That gave him time to switch his own comm to mute.

"Go ahead," Ezra said a second later, resignation in his voice. Yeah, he definitely knew what Luke's question was.

"How the heck did Jabba the Hutt end up taking the rap for you hijacking that Star Destroyer?" Luke shouted.

Ezra gave a hysterical sounding laugh. But when he answered his voice was its usual self assured, almost cocky tone. "I may have told the officer who arrested me that my name was Jabba the Hutt."

"Ezra!" Luke couldn't believe that. But for some reason, he really wished he was close enough to see Ezra's face right now. He had the feeling that the expression would have been priceless.

"I didn't expect him to believe me!" shouted back Ezra. "Everyone knows who Jabba the Hutt is!"

"Everyone in the Outer Rim," Luke agreed. "Was the officer not from the Outer Rim?"

"I dunno. Doesn't matter. This is not my fault. I can't be held responsible for the Empire being so stupid that they don't catch stuff like this before it turns into a riot in the streets!" declared Ezra.

Luke maneuvered the Hound's Tooth higher into the air so that he'd have more room for evading if they got into a dogfight. On his sensors he saw the other bounty hunter ship, the Punishing One, doing the same.

"Yeah. Someone in the Empire really screwed up. But what I don't understand is why these guys are doing this?' said Luke.

"What guys doing what?" Ezra asked.

"These bounty hunters," Luke clarified. "They know that he didn't do what he was accused of. They have to know. But they're going after him anyway. Why?"

"The obvious reason, I think," Ezra said.

"Huh?"

"The money."

Luke still didn't understand. "But he didn't do what he was accused of. I mean, Jabba's scum, and this place will likely be better without him, so I don't really object to them taking him out, but why do this if they know he's not the one the Empire really wants?"

"Like I said, the money," Ezra said. "They're bounty hunters. They don't care if people really did what they're accused of as long as they get paid and get paid well."

"But –"

"Luke, listen," said Ezra with a tone of urgency to his voice. "You have to remember this. Bounty hunters aren't good people. They don't care if someone's guilty or not as long as they get paid. And they've got no problem screwing over anyone, whether they're on their side or not. I saved Bossk's life back on Lothal and after that he still swindled me."

"So why are we working with them?" Luke asked.

"Because they were our best chance of getting out of Mos Eisley alive. And now because if we abandon them here they'll hunt us down and make us pay. Good enough reason?"

Luke winced. Then he tensed. There was something coming . . .

"Switching my comm back on," Ezra called down to him. And then, "We've got trouble coming."

"My sensors don't show anything," Dengar said through the comm. He sounded skeptical. But Luke felt it too.

Suddenly, there was a blip. "My sensors do," Luke said. "Coming in from the southwest. Two crafts."

"Huh. They're on mine now too. Guess Bossk upgraded his sensors," Dengar muttered. "Right, I'll take the big one. You kiddies shoot down the small one. If you can manage it."

"But they haven't attacked us or anything," said Luke. "We don't know they're enemies."

"Oh, they're enemies, kid. I recognize those ships. That's Shunjinko and Krazar Pors. Their ships, at least, so smart money says they're on them. They're bounty hunters, by the way."

"Then aren't they on our side?"

"That's Blondie talking, isn't it?" Dengar sounded more amused than annoyed. "And no, they are not on our side. They're our competition."

"So we're going to kill them?" Luke couldn't help but feel horrified. This was different than helping kill Jabba. These bounty hunters hadn't done anything to them yet.

"Luke, you might want to take evasive action," Ezra suggested, and then Luke felt it too. No, he'd been feeling it, but had been too shocked to act on it. Quickly, he gripped the controls and shot sideways to avoid a torpedo. At the same time he became aware of cannon fire from the Hound's Tooth.

Suddenly there was an explosion.

"Blue! I said the big one was mine!" snapped Dengar.

"It was in my way."

"Will you idiots stop your babbling? We're trying to shoot our way through Jabba's thugs. We don't need to hear your squabbles!" snapped Boba.

"I'm sorry, boss, are we distracting you?" Dengar sassed. "What! Kid! Damn it Blue!"

The smaller ship had just been shot down.

"What? You told me to take the smaller one," Ezra growled.

"That was before you killed the big one! But you went and killed them both! Greedy little scurrier plagued wamp-rat."

"Maintain comm silence unless it's necessary!" snapped Boba. "That is an order, all of you!"

Overhead, Luke heard Ezra cackling. He didn't sound phased at all about having shot down two ships and possibly killed people. But then, this wasn't anything new to him, was it? He'd been doing this all day. Hell, maybe all his life. Luke didn't really know that much about Ezra. That was worrying. What if he'd misjudged what kind of person Ezra was?

But no, Luke didn't really believe that. He remembered how Ezra had gone to warn that teenage pilot and the Wookiee back at the cantina. Then how Ezra had kept Luke close on the fight to the spaceport. The bounty hunters would have gladly left Luke to fend for himself, but Ezra had refused to let them.

"More incoming," Ezra announced a minute later, and seconds after Luke had felt it too. Even though the scanners didn't show anything for a few more seconds. That gave Luke pause. Mentally. It didn't keep him from steering the ship, but he consciously took note that Ezra was like him. Very intuitive.

That had always been what made Luke the best pilot around. And it was a trait that none of his other friends had ever had. It made Luke wonder now about several things. But he had other things on his mind too, and those had to come first since they were in battle.

The air around Jabba's palace was quickly getting very crowded. More fighters began appearing on the scanners. When they got close enough, Dengar announced some of them as bounty hunters and others as Jabba's lackeys. Then he stopped bothering. He and Ezra were shooting them down indiscriminately anyway so it probably wasn't worth the effort.

Luke quickly realized that he and Ezra worked well together. With so many fighters, Luke would have thought that he would have needed to use the nose gun to help keep up with them, diverting some of his attention from flying. But Ezra was a very good shot and he seemed to anticipate Luke's steering, putting that into his shooting calculations. Dengar may have been an experienced bounty hunter, but he was being put to shame.

Luke realized something then. Even if Ezra wasn't exactly a white knight and found killing easy, even if he had some darkness in him, Luke still wanted to be his friend. They worked well together. And there was goodness in Ezra too. Luke had seen it, both when Ezra was watching out for him and when he talked about freeing those slaves on Kessel.

They worked well together. Even though they'd never met before today, it was like they just clicked together. And it made Luke feel like maybe they were meant to be teamed up.

"Hey Boss, things are getting pretty bad out here," Dengar said a few minutes later, after a few minutes spent shooting down enemy crafts and evading enemy fire. "You guys almost done?"

On the other end of the comm there was silence for several seconds.

"That doesn't sound good," muttered Ezra.

Then –

"We're here, Dengar. And yeah, we just killed Jabba. Bossk is cutting off his head now. Trying to get his whole carcass out of here would be impossible."

"Try to hurry, if you can," Dengar said tensely. "Because we – shit!"

"I've got you! Hold your course!" Ezra shouted.

The next second was marked by another enemy ship exploding.

"Shit. Thanks Blue. You too, Blondie," Dengar said, sounding immensely relieved. "Like I was saying, Boss, hurry if you can. Because we're not exactly in a good position out here, and it's past time we made our getaway."

"We're on our way now," Boba said. "Hold your positions."

"And don't let anything happen to my ship!" ordered Bossk.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Mr. Bossk, sir," Ezra said with laughter in his voice.

"Blondie, when we reach the extraction point I want you to bring Hound's Tooth down and pick us all up. Dengar, you cover us," Boba said. It sounded like he was running as he gave the order.

"Hey Boss, I think it would make more sense for the two of them to give us cover and for me to pick you up," said Dengar. 'These kids –"

"Are rookies. I don't know them. I know you. You'll cover us. They'll pick us up, and then they'll get out of the pilot and gunner seats so we can take over," said Boba. His tone made it clear that this wasn't up for debate.

"Right you are," Dengar acquiesced.

"Roger that," Luke said, because he thought he should acknowledge the order somehow. He started taking them lower in preparation for the pick up. But like Dengar, he thought it would have been better if he and Ezra had flown cover. They were doing a better job taking care of enemies than Dengar. Not that Dengar was slacking or anything. But Ezra and Luke were two people, working perfectly in sync, splitting the jobs of shooting and piloting. Dengar was doing both on his own. It only made sense that Ezra and Luke would be doing a better job shooting down enemies.

"We're almost to the extraction point," Boba said seconds later, and Luke put the ship into a steep dive. He pulled up out of is just shy of crashing into the ground, and hovered just above the ground, flipping a switch to open the cargo hold's ramp. Better to keep the engines running, he though. It seemed like they would be making a fast getaway.

Seconds after that, the bounty hunters were boarding.

"Good thinking, not landing," Bossk complimented Luke as he bounded into the cockpit. "It'll make for a faster takeoff."

Then he swatted Luke right out of the pilot's seat.

"Ow! Hey!"

"Now stay out of my way, Scrawny."

"Scrawny?" demanded Luke. "I'm not Scrawny!"

"Well, Shorty's taken," growled Bossk.

"Ezra's shorter and scrawnier than me!" Luke protested. "He – look out!"

He sensed it before he saw it coming, but by then it was already too late. Bossk, alerted by Luke's shout, was able to take evasive action but the torpedo still grazed the top of the ship.

"AH!" Ezra's cry was sharp but short.

"Ezra!" Luke shouted.

"Shorty? You alright?" Bossk called.

Luke was already running. He nearly knocked down the Gand bounty hunter in his haste, and only his reflexes saved him from crashing into one of the droids. When he got to the gunner station, Ezra was on the floor unconscious. Boba was in the gunner seat.

"He's alive," Boba said, not even sparing Luke a glance.

Luke glared at him then went to check and verify for himself.

"The shields are holding, but it must have caused a power surge and fried a few wires," Boba said. He aimed and shot the ship's gun. In the distance, another ship went down. "He got shocked. Nothing worse."

Ezra was still breathing, much to Luke's relief. But he wouldn't wake when Luke shook him.

"Is Shorty alright?" Bossk asked again through the comms.

"He will be," Boba said. "Concentrate on getting us out of here."

Luke glared at Boba again, then looked down at Ezra. He got the feeling that something was wrong, worse than just being shocked. His eyes narrowed on a dark patch on Ezra's side, just above his hip. Closer examination revealed that it was blood.

Panicking, Luke quickly opened Ezra's shirt and found a bandage there. Ezra had bled through it, and from its looks, was still bleeding.

"Help. I need help. Ezra's hurt. Bad, I think," Luke called down to the other bounty hunters. "He's bleeding."

Boba cursed. For a second, Luke thought it was because he realized Ezra really was hurt. But then he spoke and ruined it.

"We've got bigger problems. Look who just showed up."

Grudgingly, Luke looked out the window and his heart started hammering in his ribcage. He found himself staring at the biggest ship he'd ever seen. It was huge, and web shaped, and there was only one kind of ship that could possibly be. "A Star Destroyer."

"Boba? The Empire's hailing us. We're being ordered to dock on that ship," said Bossk through the comms.

Luke's heart started hammering even harder. Did the Empire know? Did they know Ezra was on this ship? That he was the one they were looking for? If they didn't, Luke couldn't let them find out. But how could he stop that from happening?

"Comply with their request," ordered Boba. "This is our lucky day. They can pay us right now and take this stinking head off our hands."

"Wait," Luke said. "I don't . . . we don't . . ."

"Stop talking," Boba ordered.

"But –"

"I mean it," Boba said sharply. "Stop talking. Don't talk at all in front of the Empire."

He looked down at Ezra and spied his glareshades, sticking out of his jacket pocket. Boba grabbed them and handed them to Luke. "Put those on. And wrap this around your face."

"Wrap what –"

Boba ripped a long strip of bloody fabric out of Ezra's shirt.

"Make sure your mouth is covered. And if anyone from the Empire asks you any questions, just make nonsense noises. This way you can pass as an alien, and hopefully they won't notice you're barely more than a toddler, and we won't get held up while some Imperial on an ego trip decides to check your bounty hunter's license."

"What?"

"Do it," snapped Boba.

 _This is never going to work,_ Luke thought to himself, but he obeyed. "What about Ezra?"

"We leave him here. He's injured. If they come in and check, they'll see that pretty damn fast. The Empire's not going to care about an injured bounty hunter. If anything, he'll help us not get held up here. If we can legitimately claim one of our own is injured, they're more likely to let us leave faster. See, we make the Imps nervous when they think we're on edge. Now stop talking."

* * *

The next hour passed in a daze for Luke. He couldn't fully concentrate on what was happening, because he was worried about Ezra, and nervous about both of them getting caught.

After the two bounty hunter ships docked on the Star Destroyer, the bounty hunters all assembled, in front of the ships, while about two dozen stormtroopers held them at gunpoint. A self important looking officer type stepped up and started talking to them in condescending tones. Boba stepped forward and spoke to him, using as few words as possible, but somehow still giving a stronger impression that he thought the man standing before him was trash.

It turned out that the Empire had finally sorted their mistake out. It seemed that some agent named Kallus had taken some kid who they'd captured near Lothal at face value when the kid claimed his name was Jabba the Hutt. Then the kid had escaped, and hijacked Kallus's Star Destroyer.

Luke tried to keep a straight face during that explanation. So Ezra had been telling the truth about that after all. Not that Luke had doubted. But he was still glad that Boba made him wrap that strap of fabric around his face like a scarf, covering his mouth, so no one could see his expression when that story was told. Luke didn't think anyone looked his way. It seemed like Ezra was right, that people thinking of the two of them as a package deal deterred anyone from thinking one of them had been the lone hijacker. But he was still glad his face was covered.

The Empire didn't ask him any questions. They didn't bother with him at all. They were too busy arguing with Boba about the bounty. It seemed that they were in the process of rescinding it. But as Boba pointed out, it had not officially been rescinded yet, and they were here now, delivering it. When the officer insinuated that they ought to be arrested for disturbing the peace and participating in a riot, Boba pointed out coldly that the Empire had been the ones who put that riot into motion by putting a bounty on a gangster with half the planet's thug population on his payroll.

Their back and forth went on for a bit. Longer than Luke would have liked. He was worried about Ezra, still unconscious on Bossk's ship. The Gand bounty hunter had quickly replaced Ezra's bandage before leaving the ship, but Luke didn't like leaving him alone when he was in that state.

Finally, after much snarking and intimidation, Boba finally secured payment. In cold, hard currency no less. Luke couldn't help gawking, glad that the glareshades were covering his eyes so no one could see how big they'd gotten. He didn't know exactly how much had been placed on Jabba's head, but that right there was more money than he'd ever seen in his life. Heck, a tenth of it would still have been more than had ever passed through his uncle's farm in his life. And half of that tenth was his.

I _could use that money to get off Tattooine,_ he thought. _I wouldn't even have to go to the academy. I could buy a ship. Find the Rebellion on my own._

Or maybe not. He couldn't forget how those other Rebels had treated Ezra. But he could still get off Tattooine and find his own way in life.

"Zussack, 4-LOM, go with Dengar. Highsinger, you're with Bossk, Blondie, and me. Rendezvous point is the Mos Eisley Spaceport. Meet up at the bay where Bossk lands for your cut," Boba ordered.

Without hesitation or question, the Gand and his droid partner headed to Dengar's ship. Luke was a little surprised that no one balked about letting that much money leave their sight. But he guessed these guys had worked together long enough to trust each other. That or Boba thought it was a bad idea to screw over this many other highly trained, heavily armed killers. Luke wasn't sure which it was, or maybe it was both. But whatever the reason, Zussack and 4-LOM departed on Dengar's ship. And Highsinger wheeled their payout onto Bossk's ship, following the humans and Trandoshan back aboard.

* * *

The other bounty hunters all showed up to Boba's ships with their own cases or bags. Highsinger had split the bounty up on the way back to Tatooine. Boba disappeared briefly and returned with a case of his own. And, a large, long, empty bag that had seen better days. He tossed it to Luke.

"For your share. You and Blue can split it between yourselves when he's awake," Boba said by way of explanation.

"Thank you," Luke said.

Boba brushed off his thanks with something akin to disgust.

"That's a body bag, Blondie," Dengar informed him with a smirk.

Luke faltered. The other bounty hunters laughed.

"A used body bag by the smell of it," Bossk put in.

"Gross," said Luke, holding it away from him.

"You know what else is gross, Blondie?" asked Boba. "Walking around, advertizing you've got this much currency and getting shanked over it."

"He's right," Dengar said with great cheer.

"As for the other part of your payment that Blue negotiated for," said Boba, "which one of us gives you a ride there depends on where you want to go."

"Oh. Uh . . ." Luke looked around nervously, not sure how to proceed.

Ezra hadn't woken yet. On the flight back to Tattooine Boba had given him a quick look over and proclaimed that he wasn't in danger of killing over, then lost interest. Bossk seemed a bit more concerned about Ezra's wellbeing and actually turned over the helm to Boba to confirm this, and checked Ezra's bandages. While doing that, he confirmed the diagnosis Boba gave. Currently, Ezra was still passed out.

"I'm heading to Coruscant if you kids want a ride there," offered Dengar.

"Forget it," said Bossk suddenly. "I'll take 'em where they want to go."

"Why's that?" Boba asked, giving the Trandoshan a look that was a mix of both disinterest and suspicion.

"Business so bad for you that you're becoming a space taxi?" asked Dengar.

"Hardly, since I'm not getting paid to do this," huffed Bossk.

"Taking on twin apprentices then?"

"Like hell," Bossk growled.

"Wouldn't be the first time you played guardian angel for a stray human child."

"Dengar," Boba said, with a warning note in his voice.

"No offense intended, of course, Boss," Dengar said hastily.

Boba gave a curt nod, closing that matter. Then he looked at Bossk expectantly.

"Shorty did me a good turn a couple weeks back," said Bossk.

"You mean the good turn that you repaid him for by swindling him?" asked Luke. He was sketchy on the details of that himself, but wasn't sure if he trusted Bossk.

"Yep. That one," said Bossk. A grin split his lizard-like face. "And in some ways that was a good turn back. It smartened him up a little. But beings as he was a little useful again, and I don't have another job immediately lined up, I'll admit he might deserve a little something for his efforts."

Boba looked at Luke expectantly. It took Luke a couple seconds but he soon realized that he was expected to make a decision.

"Oh! Um, ok. Yeah, that's fine. We'll go with Bossk –"

"That's Mr. Bossk to you, Scrawny," said Bossk.

"We'll go with Mr. Bossk," Luke corrected himself, half glaring at the Trandoshan.

"Welp, if that's all sorted out, I'll be taking my leave," said Dengar. "I made more today than I made all last year. So there's only one thing to do –"

"I don't particularly care if you go and drink and whore your whole score away, but I don't want to have to hear you fantasizing about it beforehand or bitching about it afterward," said Boba. "I'm leaving."

Highsinger left when Boba did. Zussack, and 4-LOM took a bit longer to gather up their share and pack it into their case. Dengar hung around a little longer after that for no real reason Luke could discern. He just seemed to want to run his mouth and wind Bossk up. He finally left when Bossk threatened to bodily throw him off the ship. But not before slipping Luke his transmission code and instructions to call him if he and Ezra went into the bounty hunting game full time and wanted to team up again. Luke felt a thrum of pride, realizing he'd won the bounty hunter's respect for his piloting abilities.

Then, Dengar finally left.

"I thought he'd never go," said Bossk. "Damn those guys are annoying."

"Aren't you guys friends?" asked Luke.

"Ha! Don't make me laugh. Bounty hunters don't have friends, Scrawny. Only useful people who can at best be considered allies," Bossk said. He waited a second then added, "Kind of like whatever arrangement you've got going on with Shorty."

"Um, we're cousins," Luke said, telling him the lie that Ezra had made for their cover story.

"No you're not," said Bossk. "Why you lying?"

"I'm not lying," protested Luke. "We're cousins."

"He's a street rat from Lothal," Bossk said. "You're a farm boy from this desert rock. Don't bother denying it. I can smell it on you."

"Yeah . . . well, Ezra was coming to live with us," said Luke. "He was going to work on the farm too, but –"

"More lies. You're really not good at lying, brat," said Bossk. "But I have to say, I'm interested in what you're going try to tell me when I ask how Shorty managed to pin that Star Destroyer hijacking on Jabba?"

"What? What? He didn't!" said Luke. "That wasn't Ezra!"

"Scrawny, I know Shorty," said Bossk. "Not well, but probably better than you. I know exactly how insane this kid can be. If there's one kid in this whole universe who I'd believe could hijack a fully staffed Star Destroyer then it would be Boba. But I know for a fact that Boba was on Coruscant, and he doesn't really qualify as a kid anymore anyway. And if I had to pick a second person who could pull something like that off, it would be Shorty. And he would have been right around Lothal when that all went down."

"You're wrong!"

"What I can't figure out is how you fit into it," said Bossk. "You obviously know he was the one who did all that. But you're not smart enough to really be useful to him. And you're a horrible liar to boot. But Shorty's pretty smart for a kid. So for the life of me I can't figure out what he's spilling such dangerous secrets to you for."

Luke was on the verge of panicking. He could tell that no matter what he said, Bossk wasn't going to believe him. He knew that Ezra had been the one to steal the Star Destroyer. And free those slaves. There might not exactly be a bounty on his head at the moment, but he was sure that if someone walked up to the Empire and handed them Ezra that person would be well rewarded.

"Look," he said slowly, trying to buy himself some time. He had to figure out a way to get Ezra out of this. "Maybe you're right about some of that. But . . . Ezra's your friend, right? He's my friend too, and I want to help him –"

"Do you not remember what I just said about bounty hunters not having any friends?" sneered Bossk.

"Well . . . he . . . he saved your life!" Luke remembered. "That guy in the cantina would have killed you if Ezra hadn't stepped in!"

"And I'm grateful for that," said Bossk. "But gratitude only goes so far in this line of business. And friendship, well, that doesn't actually exist."

The next thing Luke knew, Bossk had seized him by the front of his shirt and was hauling him out of his ship.

"Wait! Stop! Let me go!"

"Gladly."

They'd reached the end of the ramp. Bossk gave Luke a toss. Then hit the button to close the ramp.

"No! Wait!" Luke jumped back to his feet and started to rush toward Bossk. The mortar gun that the Trandoshan aimed toward him stopped him. He thought fast. "Our share of the bounty! I'll trade you. Let me and Ezra walk away and you can keep it."

"Scrawny," said Bossk with a feral grin, right before the ramp fully closed, "I'm keeping it anyway."

* * *

When Ahsoka Tano, codenamed Fulcrum, got the call, she couldn't believe it. She had heard of many crazy things in her lifetime. Under the tutelage of her former master, she'd lived through many crazy things. But this really took the cake.

"You're telling me," she said slowly to the Wookiee on her holoscreen, "that you are in possession of the Star Destroyer that was stolen from the Empire earlier today."

The Wookiee soldier warbled an affirmative.

It was insane. And it should have been impossible. But Ahsoka knew the Wookiee before her. She'd fought alongside him on more than one occasion during the Clone Wars. He'd been with Master Yoda when Order 66 went down, and by all reports, had been one of the last to see him alive. She trusted this Wookiee. So if he said that he'd taken his ship to the stolen Star Destroyer to pick up some of his Wookiee brethren, then it was true.

"Your ship is docked inside the Star Destroyer now?" Ahsoka asked.

The Wookiee answered yes again.

"I'm sending you a set of coordinates. Input them into the nav computer and take the Star Destroyer there immediately. There will be a team of technicians there to meet you when you arrive. May the Force be with you."

The Wookiee warbled his response before cutting off the transmission. Ahsoka double checked to make sure the holocam was off before removing her hood. Old friend the Wookiee may have been, but her identity as the orchestrator of the budding rebellion was not something she revealed lightly. Even though this . . . this situation was one she might deal with personally.

A Star Destroyer. An actual Star Destroyer.

It seemed unbelievable. And the story that her Wookiee friend had told about how it had been acquired even more so. It had been clear while he was telling it that he wasn't sure whether or not he believed it. He hadn't been one of the Wookiee slaves freed from Kessel. He was the captain of the ship those freed Wookiees had called to pick them up. The freed slaves had been planning to send the ship crashing into the Tattooine desert. But Ahsoka's contact had realized that the ship was far too valuable an asset to just destroy, and had contacted Ahsoka immediately. A very good move on his part.

Not only was the ship a nearly invincible weapon that would be invaluable to the budding rebellion's fleet, but it was a literal treasure trove of information. Ahsoka could only imagine what secrets they could mine from the ship's computers.

It did cross Ahsoka's mind that this might be a trap. In her experience if something seemed too good to be true then it usually was. But when she centered herself and opened her mind to the Force she realized that this felt right. It felt good. This was the right path for her to take. This was no trap.

She breathed a quick sigh of relief and let herself think for a moment about the story that the Wookiees had told. Their story of the lone human boy who had singlehandedly taken control of the ship, then freed them from the spice mines of Kessel.

Nostalgia and a little bit of pain thrummed through her heart. She had known someone capable of such things once. Her master. If someone were to tell her that he had been the one behind this hijacking she wouldn't have been surprised to say the least. There was even a small part of her that was hoping that maybe this was him. Maybe the Wookiees had gotten the age of the hijacker wrong. But in her heart she knew it wasn't him. If Anakin Skywalker had survived the Jedi purge he wouldn't have waited until now to make a move. He would have been giving the Empire hell for the past fourteen and a half years.

Ahsoka smiled sadly and looked across the hangar. She was based out of an ancient military base, created then abandoned hundreds of years ago, the remnants of some long forgotten war. She'd found this place after leaving the Jedi Order, while she'd been searching for herself. It was where she'd run back to when her efforts to curve the Empire's takeover and find any surviving Jedi had stirred up too much trouble.

She'd searched so hard for Anakin. If anyone could put a stop to the atrocities that the Empire had been ushering in she was sure it would be him. She'd been sure he'd survived. She'd fixed up a special ship for him.

Her eyes shimmered slightly as she looked at the Heavenly Blue. The ship that she'd meant for him. It was a Hildian Seeker. A small transport designed by a civilization that lived amongst asteroids. It was designed to dodge them, and was so fast and nimble that it could be raced through an asteroid field. Anakin would have loved it. And the impressive weapons rack Ahsoka had modified it with. He would have delivered so much hell to the Empire if she'd been able to find him and put him in the pilot's seat.

Ahsoka steeled her nerves. Now was not the time to dwell on the past. She had a Star Destroyer to claim.

* * *

One hour and several calls later saw Ahsoka, Bail Organa, Jun Sato, and several of her other confidants on board the Star Destroyer with a small army of droids. They jumped back to hyperspace to avoid being picked up by Imperial scanners, and set all the droids to work at locating and destroying every tracker on board. All the droids except one.

"You're with me, Artooie."

She and her trusted allies joined the Wookiees on the bridge. There, she had R2-D2 start pulling up footage from the cameras throughout the ship.

"Get everything, R2," she said. "I want to know exactly what happened here. I want to see every shot there is of our intrepid hijacker."

And so the story unfolded on the computer screen, via footage from the ship's many security cameras. Not every second of it was recorded. The ship was far too big and the cameras didn't cover everything. But a clear enough picture formed.

The boy, who Ahsoka codenamed Renegade One, was brought aboard the Star Destroyer from a smaller transport, that had been docked with another small cargo ship. A ship that Ahsoka recognized as the Ghost. The ship that Specter Cell operated out of. Ahsoka took a moment to ponder the implications of that. Was Renegade One one of theirs? Hera hadn't reported adding any new operatives to her crew since the Mandalorian girl, and it wasn't like her not to keep Ahsoka informed. She made a mental note to check into that.

All while watching the boy get frog marched to a prison cell. An Imperial Security Bureau agent and several guards went in with him. They left the cell a few minutes later, taking Renegade One's backpack with them.

R2-D2 fast forwarded through the footage until they saw the guards left outside Renegade One's cell enter it in a hurry. Seconds later, Renegade One darted out and gave them a wave before locking them in.

"Freeze it," Ahsoka ordered, her eyes narrowing in on one important detail.

"What? Do you see something?" Sato asked.

"Zoom in on that object in his hand," said Ahsoka. R2 complied. The blown up image was too grainy to be sure, but Ahsoka had a pretty good hunch she knew what that cube Renegade One was carrying. "A holocron."

"What?"

"A holocron," said Ahsoka. "Essentially, a datapad in cube form, with a near sentient operating system that can only be used by Force sensitives."

Bail and Sato looked at Renegade One with even more interest.

"A Jedi," said Bail.

"Or a Padawan," said Sato.

"Or maybe neither," said Ahsoka. "Resume please, R2."

Then the rest of the story unfolded. Renegade One found the storage room with his stuff in it, which was either miraculous luck on his part, or proof that he was Force sensitive. Then he disappeared into the vents, only to reappear very close to the bridge. Unfortunately, there were no cameras on the bridge, so they couldn't see just how he managed to take down all the officers on the bridge. They did see his handiwork in the following minutes, however. R2 played the announcement Renegade One gave across the ship, and they saw the mass evacuation. After that, R2 fast forwarded to the raid on Kessel and the rescue of the Wookiees. There wasn't much more than that, except some footage of Renegade One heading to the barracks, then heading back to the bridge after raiding the barracks, with new duds and a bag full of loot. Then him jumping ship above Tattooine, in a TIE fighter, and that was the last they saw of him.

"Well," Ahsoka said once they'd finished watching. "That's one hell of a kid."

"We must recruit him," Sato said instantly. "Anyone who can accomplish something like this, Jedi or not, is someone worth recruiting."

"He may already be one of us," said Ahsoka. "The ship that he was with before he was captured was one of ours. I'll have to check with them to confirm it, but if he is, the smart money is that he's regrouping with them as we speak."

The Wookiees seemed to doubt that version of the story. According to the leader of the Wookiees that Renegade One rescued, the kid was a loner, who'd planned on disappearing, not regrouping with anyone.

If that was the case, Ahsoka doubted they would be able to find the boy. People like that, when they wanted to disappear, tended to vanish without a trace. Not that it would stop her from looking. Renegade One was far too interesting to just let disappear without even trying to find. She wasn't sure how he would fit into the budding rebellion yet. But he was someone who she definitely wanted to meet.

* * *

"Wakey wakey, Shorty. Time to rise and shine."

Ezra groaned and opened his eyes. There was a stinging sensation in his neck. On instinct he raised a hand to it. Claws caught his wrist and stopped him from touching it, and an image swam into view.

"Bossk?"

"That's still Mr. Bossk to you, Shorty," said Bossk. "And it's time to wake up. We're almost at your stop."

Ezra was confused. "My stop?"

Then everything flooded back to him.

"The bounty hunt! And the dogfight! Did we win? Where's Luke? Is he ok? Did we get the bounty –"

"Shut up, Shorty," said Bossk. "You ask too many questions."

Ezra scowled and rubbed his neck. He spied a needle on one of Bossk's clawed hands. "What did you inject me with?"

"Relax, it's only a stim-shot," said Bossk. "I figured you'd gotten enough beauty sleep."

Ezra looked around, still suspicious. That was his nature. His instincts were telling him he wasn't in danger. But his senses were telling him something wasn't right. Luke was nowhere to be seen. And Ezra was no experienced spacer, but the way the ship was moving felt to him like they were in hyperspace.

"What's going on here?" Ezra asked guardedly.

"I could ask you the same thing, Shorty," said Bossk. "What in hell made you think it was a good idea to jack a Star Destroyer? And how'd you manage to pin the whole thing on Jabba?"

Ezra's heart started hammering. But he forced himself to stay calm. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're a good liar, Shorty," said Bossk. "But your friend wasn't."

Luke. Ezra should have known the farm boy had no poker face. Bossk must have gotten an inkling of what had happened and had gotten the full story out of Luke, probably without even trying.

And now Bossk was taking him to the Empire.

Or at least that's what he should have been doing. But somehow Ezra knew he wasn't. His instincts weren't warning him of any danger. And he wasn't tied up. His hands weren't even bound. Bossk was too experienced a bounty hunter to leave him at large. Plus he knew exactly what Ezra was capable of. If Bossk planned on turning him in for a bounty then he should be hog tied or drugged into unconsciousness.

"Okay. So you know everything," said Ezra. "So what are you going to do about it?"

Bossk have a hissing laugh. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do about it Shorty. In fact, I'll show you."

Bossk grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up, then manhandled him into the cockpit. He shoved Ezra down into the copilot's chair right as they exited hyperspace above a beautiful planet marbled green, blue, and white.

"That, Shorty, is Alderaan. And I am chucking you out there to lay low for awhile."

Ezra stared at him unable to compute what he was hearing. "You're just going to let me go?"

"Not for free. I'll be keeping your tenth of the bounty."

"Half of it's Luke's," Ezra said without thinking.

"And he graciously offered it to me in exchange for letting the two of you walk away," said Bossk. "Mind you I was going to take it anyway."

"You let him go?" asked Ezra just to make sure.

"Yeah. I've got no use for him," said Bossk.

"And did you tell him you were planning on letting me go?" Ezra was pretty sure he already knew the answer. Bossk had an image to uphold after all.

The Trandoshan confirmed Ezra's guess by snorting. "Where's the fun in that?"

"And you really are . . . just letting me go?" asked Ezra. He was having a hard time believing this. "Why?"

Bossk gave a feral grin. "Obviously, because you are far more trouble than you're worth."

Ezra scowled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I know you, Shorty. I've seen first hand how chaotic things get when you're thrown in the mix. And I don't know all the details about how you hijacked that Star Destroyer, but it's not that good a career move to get on the wrong side of someone who can pull that off," said Bossk. "If I handed you over to the Empire, you'd just jack another ship and escape again. Then you'd probably be out for revenge."

Ezra didn't deny this.

"Plus, you did have a deal with Boba," said Bossk. "He's another one who it's a bad idea to cross. And he takes deals seriously. So I'm dropping you off here. There's barely any Imperial presence, and it's an agriculture planet. Plenty of food. The perfect place for you to stuff your scrawny loth-rat face until you put on a few pounds."

"Wow, Mr. Bossk. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were being nice."

That earned Ezra a slap upside the head. Ezra decided not to push it further. He doubted Bossk would change his mind and hand him over or anything. It was more out of courtesy to his . . . ally. Because Ezra knew, really knew, that Bossk wasn't just letting him go because he wanted to play it safe. Bounty hunting, by definition, was a profession full of danger and risks. Bounties were often placed on the heads of people far more powerful and dangerous than teenagers with incredible streaks of luck. There was no way Bossk was chickening out. Ezra had the feeling that if it were anyone else, Bossk would have sold them out to the Empire without a second thought.

Which left the obvious answer. That he wasn't turning Ezra over because Ezra wasn't anyone else. Ezra was the kid who'd had his back on two crazy adventures and saved his life on each one. Whether Bossk would admit it or not, that meant something to him.

Of course it didn't hurt that Ezra had a large lump sum of credits in his possession that Bossk could take as a buy off. Ezra wouldn't complain too hard about that. He knew damn well that he was getting off far luckier than he should be.

He pretended not to notice when he saw Bossk stuff a handful of credits into Ezra's side bag right before Bossk kicked him off the ship.

* * *

Even without his and Luke's share of the bounty on Jabba's head, Ezra was still in possession of a whole lot of credits. He still had everything that he'd looted from the Star Destroyer's barracks in addition to what Bossk had snuck into his bag when he thought Ezra wasn't looking.

So, for the first time in his life, Ezra rented a motel room. Sleeping on the streets when he had that much money on him wasn't just foolhardy, it was suicidal. Or at least it was where Ezra came from. Somehow Alderaan seemed different.

It didn't take Ezra long to realize what that difference was. There were no street urchins, no beggars, or obvious signs of poverty. Not even around the spaceport, where the bad element and lower classes thrived. There weren't even any seedy motels. And Ezra actually looked for one. He wanted the cheapest room he could get. And the price he had to pay for it was only slightly more than a room at one of the sleazier inns on Lothal charged. But it was so far from what he was expecting to get for that price.

It was clean, for one. Small, as expected, but airy and light. The window was open when Ezra entered, letting a warm breeze blow in. On the walls were several pictures. Landscapes. And on the table was a bowl of fruit. Real, edible fruit. Not artificial stuff left out for decoration.

Ezra immediately locked the door, shut the window, then dragged the small wooden wardrobe in front of it, to block the window off. Then he jammed a chair underneath the doorknob. Once he was sure his room was as secure as he could make it, Ezra started opening his bags and spreading out his loot, organizing it so he could get an idea of what he had. He hadn't counted or paid particular attention to how much of anything he was taking when he'd been looting. He just shoved whatever credits he could find into his bags, and as many ration packs as would fit.

Now, after counting it all out, he saw that he had enough ration packs to have a meal for forty-seven days straight, and maybe, just maybe enough credits to buy a small ship.

He'd put a little bit of thought into what he'd do with his share of the bounty on Jabba, back when he'd been shooting other bounty hunters out of the sky, and still thought that he'd be able to keep his share of the money. He hadn't had too much time to think on it, but the idea of buying his own ship definitely crossed his mind and stuck.

It made the most sense. He knew it would cost a whole lot of money, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized it would be worth it. A ship meant a roof over his head, a safe place to stay and sleep. And it meant a way to earn more money, some of it even legitimately, transporting cargo or passengers from one planet to another. In other words, a ship meant an honest shot at a new life, and one where Ezra might actually be able to live instead of just survive from day to day.

"I'll start searching for one tomorrow," he decided, as he sat down on the bed, after packing all his things away again, so that if he had to leave in a hurry, he'd be ready. For now, he was tired. So tired. Even though he'd gotten a few hours of sleep between Tattooine and Alderaan, Ezra was still dead tired. His eyes slid shut and he fell asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

* * *

When Bail Organa returned to Alderaan, he was exhausted. He, alongside most of the rest of the fledgling rebellion's inner circle, had worked around the clock once they'd boarded the Star Destroyer, downloading everything they could from the computers on board the ship. They'd also found a closet full of tied up Imperial officers, who turned out to be the bridge crew that Renegade One had taken prisoner, who had to be interrogated before being transported to a secure facility. And there'd been an incredible amount of supplies, weaponry, machinery, amongst other things to catalogue so it could be distributed in the near future.

There had been enough ration packs to feed an army, and enough blasters to arm one to boot. With so much wealth and supplies suddenly just handed to them, they had to start somewhere with figuring out what to do with it.

The others were still working. But Bail had to return to Alderaan before he was missed. Unlike the others, he was a public figure, and so while the Empire might not have him under constant surveillance or anything, his movements were watched. He could leave for a day without it being made part of the public record, but not for a week. Or a month, which was how long it looked like it would take to sort out all the stuff on the Star Destroyer.

R2-D2 came with him. Bail had offered to leave his most trustworthy little droid with Ahsoka, knowing he'd be helpful there as well as in good hands, but Ahsoka urged him to bring R2 home. The little droid had a wealth of information files in his hard drive now, and Ahsoka trusted they would remain secure with him. Bail's next task was to start sorting through the information. What they learned from it would allow them to come up with hundreds of new missions and ways to exploit and harass the Empire. All of Ahsoka's rebel cells were about to get very busy.

Bail was supposed to be incognito as they crossed through the space port. His disguise was that of an old spacer who, thirty years ago, might have born some passing resemblance to how Bail Organa looked today. All the same, he didn't want any attention drawn to him. Which was why he was surprised when R2 suddenly started beeping at him to stop.

"What is it, old friend?' he asked softly but urgently. For R2 to speak out when they were trying to pass through the crowds unnoticed meant something had to be wrong.

But his translation of R2's beeps was confusing. "I found him. He's here." R2 repeated that same phrase several times fast.

"Who's here?" Bail asked. He had to fight the urge to look around nervously. If he was being watched that was a tell that he was onto his tail.

R2 projected a small hologram into the air between him and Bail. Quickly, and only for a moment, so fast that if you blinked you'd miss it. But Bail clearly recognized the boy code named Renegade One.

Now Bail did look around, particularly in the directions R2 could have seen the boy in. And there he was. He was almost nondescript in his long brown coat, but his hair color was unusual for this planet. And on Alderaan you didn't usually find people with that half starved look, or see anyone as painfully skinny as Renegade One. Most other places he would have blended in well, but here on Alderaan he stuck out.

Bail made a split second decision. He decided to follow the boy. As a leader from behind the scenes rather than an operative, this wasn't what he was supposed to be doing, and Ahsoka would probably let him have it once she learned. But if he didn't act and act now then it was entirely possible that Renegade One would disappear into the crowd. If Bail could find out where he was going or what he was doing here on Alderaan than he'd have a powerful piece of information to report to Ahsoka. Especially if it turned out that Renegade One was not part of any known rebel cell. And if he was, Bail could help the boy, use his resources to get the boy back to his own crew that much faster.

"We're following him," Bail told R2. "Keep an eye out for anyone who might be watching to see if the boy has a tail. Or watching the boy."

R2 beeped an affirmative. And together they started to follow the boy.

But Bail had forgotten what it was like working with Jedi. Or at least trained Force users. Because almost immediately, Renegade One looked up and locked eyes with Bail. Bail then had two options. He could either pretend like he only met the boy's eyes by chance, and walk away, or he could deal with this head on. Trying to continue following him discreetly wasn't an option anymore and he knew it. The boy had made him. Any further attempt at following him was doomed to fail.

So rather than give up, Bail chose to meet the boy head on. He nodded to Renegade One and approached him. The boy watched him with undisguised suspicion and Bail saw him loosen one of his blasters in its holster.

"You look like someone in need of a ride," Bail said as a greeting. "And it just so happens I take passengers, Interested in discussing fees?"

The boy shook his head. "I'm not looking to buy passage. I'm looking to buy a ship."

"Buy a ship?" Bail was surprised. This was news that Ahsoka would definitely want to know. And it was something they might be able to work to their advantage.

"So unless you're selling or know someone who is, we don't have anything else to discuss." The boy started to back away. "I'm on my way to meet someone who might be selling right now. So, bye."

Bail nodded and stepped back too. The first thing he planned to do when he got back to his office was to monitor the registry of ships that changed owners. The next would be to place a call to Ahsoka.

* * *

"Hey. You still looking to buy a ship?"

Ezra turned and found himself staring at an attractive, well dressed Togruta woman. For a moment, he focused his instincts on her, as he had on every prospective seller he'd met since his starting his search the previous day. And unlike all the others, this one felt right. His instincts were telling him that this was one to check out.

Ezra gave the woman his most charming smile. "As a matter of fact, I am. I guess word gets around."

"Especially when the buyer's as young as you," the woman said. "No offense."

"None taken. I'm actually older than I look," Ezra lied.

"That's good to know," said the Togruta. "My ship's this way."

Ezra started walking beside her, through the halls between spaceport bays. "My name's Ezra, by the way."

"I'm Cel," said the woman. "Cel Aeno."

She didn't press when he didn't volunteer a last name. Ezra was almost positive that the Empire had no idea what his name was, but he still didn't want to throw it around and let everyone know. Revealing his last name too lightly might be what caused the Empire to find out.

Cel led Ezra to a bay where Ezra beheld the most beautiful ship he'd ever seen. It was a small ship. Less than a third of the size that the Ghost had been, and built along very different lines. The body of the ship was long and rectangular. And its wings were set above it, angled down toward the rear, where they were attached. The entire ship had been painted light blue. It gleamed like a jewel. At that moment Ezra realized two things.

One: He wanted this ship more than he'd ever wanted anything before.

And Two: There was no way he could afford a ship like this.

"Sorry," he said regretfully. "But I think this is outside my price range."

Cel stepped between him and the ship so he was looking directly at her. Then she gave a mischievous smile. "Would you take her for, say, one hundred credits?"

Ezra stared. He was pretty sure his jaw dropped too.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't think I heard you right –"

"You did," said Cel. "One hundred credits for my ship. The Heavenly Blue."

Ezra continued staring. The ship's gleaming paint job had to have cost its owner more than a hundred credits. Its meager weapons system had to be more than one hundred credits. The engines had to be worth over one thousand. If Ezra had to estimate what a ship like this would cost, he'd put it at no less than eighteen thousand.

"What's the catch?" he asked, knowing there had to be more to this than met the eye. If something sounded too good to be true, it usually was.

"No catch," Cel said. "Come aboard. Let me show her to you."

Ezra focused for a moment. His instincts were telling him he was in the clear. Which made no sense, because this was clearly some kind of scam. But his instincts hadn't steered him wrong yet. So with a little reluctance and a lot of wariness, he followed Cel aboard.

There wasn't much inside the ship. A small cargo bay, a very small sleeping cabin that could house two, an extremely tiny fresher, and the cockpit. Everything was very clean. Much of it looked a little on the old side, but well kept. The Togruta woman moved through the ship with a sense of familiarity.

"It hasn't been flown much recently, but it's been well maintained. Ownership papers are right here," Cel said. "And the slip of payment for docking fees, paid for until this day next month. I flew her in here this morning. The log says so right here, as does the docking slip. Come outside, I'll open up the engine for you to take a look."

Ezra was a decent hand at mechanics. From what Cel showed him of the engine it looked good. So he was confused. Everything he knew said that this was some kind of con. And not a very good one. The Togruta woman should have been asking for a lot more than a hundred credits for this ship to make the scam worth her while. Half the market price of the ship would have been a much better profit for her and seemed a lot less suspicious.

But his instincts were telling him to do this.

Ezra bit his tongue for a few seconds as he thought this over. Then he made his decision. He'd trust his instincts.

"Alright," he said. "I'll take it."

Cel called over one of the spaceport officials to validate the transaction. The man raised his eyebrows at the price being paid, but didn't comment. A few papers were signed. A little bit of money changed hands. And then the Heavenly Blue was all his. Allegedly.

"Alright," said Ezra. "You've got my money and I've taken the ship. So now, tell me what's wrong with it."

"Oh, nothing's wrong with it," said Cel. Then that smile of pure mischief crossed her face again. This time with a touch of vindictive glee. "My no good, lying, cheating husband ran off with a Twi'lek dancer he met in a club on Coruscant. He sent me a holomessage saying to sell the ship and the house and send him the money. I don't suppose you'd like to buy a house for fifty credits, would you?"

Ezra's jaw slackened. He couldn't help it. Then he started laughing and shook his head.

"So that's a no on the house?" Cel asked, and gave him a teasing pouty look.

"You are a very terrifying woman," said Ezra. "Remind me never to get on your bad side."

After Ezra managed to get himself under control he and Cel shook hands. Then Cel made to leave.

Regret thrummed through Ezra. Suddenly he didn't want to see her go. He knew almost nothing about her, besides the fact that she was recently divorced and hell had no fury like a woman like her, but he just had this feeling.

"Cel," he said without thinking.

Cel stopped and turned. She gave him a gentle smile. A gentle smile that didn't fool him in the slightest. Behind that façade of kindness was a scheming vengeful mind. Who had done him a huge favor.

"Yes Ezra Bridger?" Cel asked patiently.

"I . . . I . . . thank you," Ezra said finally. "A lot. I really mean it."

"You are very welcome," Cel said. "Take care."

This time Ezra let her leave, even though a part of him wanted very much to stop her. Letting her leave felt like leaving behind a friend. Or family. And he didn't know why. He'd never been the one to leave anyone behind. It had always been everyone else who'd left him. With the exception of Luke. Who Bossk had bodily thrown off his ship while Ezra was unconscious, so that really wasn't Ezra's fault.

He wasn't sure what it was about Cel. Or why he felt a sense of longing watching her go. But he did let her go. They were walking separate paths. That much was clear. He was glad their paths had crossed briefly. She had done him a very good turn. He hoped that one day they'd meet again. And maybe next time he would be in a position to help her.

* * *

"So you gave the boy your ship?" Bail asked Ahsoka that evening, when she snuck into his palace and he found her in his office, helping herself to his wine. "Your plan worked?"

"Yes." Ahsoka said with a smile. "I gave him the Heavenly Blue. But it was never really my ship."

Bail reached forward to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He knew the story behind that ship, and who she'd been saving it for. Sometimes he felt bad keeping the truth about Anakin from her. But he knew that Ahsoka had known for a very long time now that Anakin wouldn't be showing up to use it. Maybe giving it to this boy had been good for her.

"Renegade One's real name is Ezra Bridger," Ahsoka said. "He reminds me of him, you know. Of Anakin."

"I'm sorry," Bail said.

"Don't be," said Ahsoka. "It's nothing to be sorry for. In fact, it's a good thing."

Bail had to fight the urge to grimace.

"The Force is strong with him by the way," Ahsoka continued. "Very strong. I think he might have even been able to give Anakin and Obi-wan a run for their money. He'll be very powerful if he's ever properly trained."

"But you didn't make him that offer?" asked Bail.

"No," Ahsoka said. "I couldn't. He . . . is very scared. He doesn't trust anyone right now, and with good reason. He's no fool. He knows the Empire's after him. If I tried to get him to stay, he'd run that much faster. And more than that . . . I used the Force to read him, as much as I could without letting him realize what I was doing. And that wasn't easy. He's put up a lot of walls. I could tell he's had a hard life. I'm almost positive that he doesn't have a family. That he's a street kid."

"Poor kid."

"Well, at least now he's got a fighting chance," said Ahsoka. "A chance to turn his life around. And someone to give him a hand, even if he doesn't know it yet."

Bail nodded. He knew that Ahsoka had been up all night the previous night, hiding bugs and stealth trackers in the Heavenly Blue, as well as removing the overly impressive array of weapons she'd modified the ship with. Those had been replaced with a humble but reliable meteor chaser, to keep the ship from looking overly suspicious. And the bugs would let her keep tabs on where Renegade One, no Ezra, took the ship, what was said on board, and any communications he sent. And she, of course, had the ship's contact code. Bail knew that she planned to contact Ezra sometime in the future, maybe kick a few easy jobs his way if he wanted them. Nothing too anti-Empire or suspicious. But if he was running out of credits Ahsoka would see too it that he got more.

It was the least they could do for the boy who'd all but gift wrapped that stolen Star Destroyer for them.

A strange look suddenly crossed Ahsoka's face. Bail got the distinct impression that she was about to start crying. "Ahsoka? Are you alright?"

Ahsoka gave a sad smile. "Yes. It's just that I keep thinking . . . if Anakin had lived, he would have loved Ezra."

Bail gave her a sad smile in return as he remembered what Skywalker had been like before. "Yes," he said. "He would have."

Ahsoka straightened up and seemed to mentally brush off her sorrows. "But enough moping. The situation with Renegade One has been dealt with. So now it's time to get back to work."

* * *

It had been a long, slow couple of days for the crew of the Ghost. An air of despondency had settled over the ship. And for the life of her, Hera couldn't think of any way to dispel the mood. She wasn't even sure it could be dispelled, or if it should be. Because she knew what had caused it.

They were all feeling guilty. About the boy they'd left in the clutches of the Empire. After he'd gone to save them, they'd left him.

Hera couldn't deny that she was mad at them. Assigning extra chores and cleaning shifts had been one way to deal with that, but it had made her even angrier when Sabine, Zeb, and Kanan had just accepted the punishment meekly. And they hadn't even been able to look her in the eyes when she dished it out.

Chopper was in a mood too. He rolled around muttering darkly, and ignored requests from everyone except Hera.

But as angry as she was, Hera knew that they couldn't go like this. And so she vowed to figure out a way to remedy the situation. Maybe find them a job or something, a task to unify them and take their mind off the kid.

Tomorrow. She just didn't have the energy now. Feeling guilty and being so angry was exhausting.

So when her comm started beeping in the way that signaled an incoming message from Fulcrum she sighed. And for the first time ever, she considered ignoring it. But she knew she couldn't. The message could be something important. It could be a warning about some incoming danger.

So Hera went to the common room, which was uncharacteristically empty, but not surprisingly so given how everyone was feeling today. For once she didn't have to banish anyone while she brought up Fulcrum's incoming transmission on the holotable.

"Fulcrum," said Hera. "What news?"

"Specter Two," greeted Fulcrum. "I have a job for you."

"What kind of job?" asked Hera. "And just as a warning, now might not be the best time for us to be taking jobs. We didn't do so good against the Empire in our last encounter and we're all pretty down about it. If there's anyone else you can give the job to –"

"There's not," Fulcrum cut her off. "Specter Two, have you been watching the holonews?"

"Not for a few days," said Hera. She started to get a sinking feeling. Had something bad happened?"

"Well, if you had, you'd have learned that a Star Destroyer was hijacked two days ago –"

"What?" Hera's eyes went wide and round. "By some of us? By rebels?"

"No. By one person. He's not a rebel. Not officially. Not yet. As of now, he is an independent agent, code named Renegade One. And though he is not one of us, he did us a great service," said Fulcrum. "You remember the enslaved Wookiees your cell was searching for? Well, he liberated them from the spice mines of Kessel when he took his stolen Star Destroyer there . . . on a joy ride of sorts."

Hera was dumbfounded. She felt her jaw slacken. It was bizarre enough to learn that one person managed to overcome the entire army that was housed on any given Star Destroyer, but for someone to manage that and use it to lead a slave rebellion . . . "He what?"

"The Star Destroyer is in our possession now. And with it a wealth of information and Imperial secrets. But many of them are time sensitive in nature. Once the Empire realizes exactly what we know they'll begin making changes to make our intel redundant. So right now we need to activate every cell that can operate, to do as much damage as possible to the Empire. Is your cell capable of operating?"

"Yes," said Hera instantly. "We are."

Down and depressed or not, her crew would pull itself together in light of this. Because Hera knew exactly what this could mean. For the first time ever, they could strike a noticeable blow against the Empire.

The Star Destroyer being hijacked would be what kicked it off. It not only represented billions of credits worth of loss, but it made the Empire look foolish. Losing a Star Destroyer to a lone hijacker made their stormtroopers look like jokes.

And if that were to be followed by a string of smaller strikes against it, even if they were only little things that left the Empire momentarily floundering or that made it look stupid, then they would lose their most important weapon: fear. People would realize that the Empire wasn't invincible. And then, more and more of them would defect. And the more people who rebelled against the Empire, the weaker it would get. It would be a long, hard fight. But for the first time ever it was starting to look like it was possible for them to win it. And now was the time to strike.

"Give us a mission, Fulcrum," said Hera. "We're ready."

* * *

I'm about to get called downstairs to a family dinner/Christmas party, and I want to get this posted fast or else I'll have to wait like four hours before I can. But I still want to answer a few questions that you, my wonderful reviewers have been asking.

First, and probably most importantly, (and without giving spoilers) I'm not sure what fate I'm going to have befall Ezra's parents in this fic. It's AU so it doesn't have to go down like it did in the real show. I'm undecided on whether to have them live or die, because I can think of interesting ways of writing either one. It will be awhile before I make the final decision on that. If you have an opinion about that, feel free to leave it in a review or send me a PM.

I don't plan on changing the rating on this fic. So it will not be going up to M, but neither will I be toning it down. Just to rehash my original rating warning, this fic is Rated T for: Language, Violence, Badassery, Dark and Possibly Disturbing Situations, References to Child Abuse, Drug Use, Dark Side of the Force Use, Sociopathy and/or Ambiguous Morality, and possibly, in future chapters, Sexual Content.

Pairings/romance is undecided. Particularly where Ezra's concerned. I think because of his background and his trust issues that he's going to have a hard time in particular, forming meaningful relationships that he trusts to last, and is likely to play the field awhile before settling down, even if he gets an idea of who he really wants to be with. That might change, but that's how I feel about how his character seems right now.

Ezra and Luke will be running across a number of other characters from the Star Wars universe. I do have a couple ideas for chapters where they cross paths with a couple well known characters as well as a couple characters who aren't as well known.

I plan to try to keep Luke's personality as much as I can like it is in the original trilogy, but at the same time you will be seeing new sides to him because he's going through different experiences and has different responsibilities.

I can't really gauge how fast updates are going to be for this fic or any of my others. It depends on a lot of factors, particularly school, work, and other commitments. And this fic is probably the hardest to guess how often I can update it, because these chapters are really long, and so they take many, many hours to write and proofread. Sorry, but I can't really give an estimate for how fast updates will be.

I've got to go now. There's a Christmas party for family friends at my house right now and I've got to go be a good hostess and stop hiding in my room, lol. Please leave a review on your way out. I really want to know what you think of my fic, and it will really make my night if I come back, once the party's over, and have a bunch of reviews to read. It will make me feel better after this long night of being socially awkward and wishing I could go to the movies instead, lol.

Space Opera Singer out.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Laying Low and Flying High

* * *

Ezra spent the next month laying low on his ship. _His_ ship. He still loved the sound of that.

It was a new experience for him. Having free time. Since the Empire took his parents away, his entire life had been spent trying to survive. Always looking for a way to get food or credits to buy food with. Even after he got a good score, he still had to be on the lookout for the next one. The meager food and credits he'd managed to get hold of would never last long, so he couldn't afford to take it easy.

But now he could. He had his own ship. A full tank of fuel. Forty-seven meals worth of rations. And enough credits to buy food for a long, long time. Fuel would be more expensive. But he had a month's worth of docking fees paid for, so he decided to take advantage of that.

Tattooine was probably still a hotbed of activity, but in a few weeks, he planned to go there and find Luke. And give his partner half of the credits that Ezra had looted from the Star Destroyer's barracks, since their share of the bounty had been confiscated. And like Bossk said, Alderaan was a good place to lie low for awhile. A good place to let his wounds heal.

So, with plenty of time on his hands, and all his needs taken care of, Ezra turned once again to the cube he'd stolen from Mr. Tough Guy. The _holocron_ , he discovered it was called, after a bit of poking and prodding.

The holocron turned out to be a wealth of information about the Force. Ezra had never been much of a student, but that was mostly because he'd never had a chance to go to school. Not beyond those first few years of primary school where all you really learned was colors, letters, numbers, and how to not bite other children when they pissed you off. All things considered, Ezra took to studying remarkably well. The cube was a good teacher.

The Force, he learned, was sort of like the living embodiment of fate. It bound all living things, penetrated them, and could be used by those who it was strongest with, as a guide, as a tool, as a sense, as an extension of themselves.

And the things that it could be used for, Ezra quickly saw, were really damn useful. Some of them, he'd already been doing or using without even realizing. Like when he relied on his instincts. It seemed that he'd been opening himself up to the Force, letting it show him the best way to go. That explained his tendency to know exactly where he was going, even in places he'd never been before, and how he rarely seemed to get lost. And his reflexes. The ones that let him dodge blaster fire, and even ship canon fire. The Force was affecting those too, he learned.

He also learned about the Jedi mind trick. The ability to manipulate weaker minds via use of the Force. Well, that explained what happened to that pilot. Ezra mulled over the implications of this once he realized what he had done. On some levels, he felt bad about doing that. Guilty. But practically, if Ezra could have, he would have shot the pilot in the head with his blaster, himself. And Ezra knew he wouldn't have felt guilty about that. The guy had tried to kill him. So Ezra had killed him first. In the end, did the means really matter? Ezra spent a long, sleepless night thinking it over. In the end, he realized that if he had to, to survive, he would do the exact same thing again, and that dwelling on it any longer was pointless.

There were other useful things you could accomplish with the use of the Force too, he learned. Like using it to enhance your physical skills, which Ezra had already been doing a little bit of before, especially when jumping. And telekinesis. Being able to lift things without touching them seemed like a damned useful trick for a thief. But as Ezra accessed more information in the holocron, he realized that he wasn't limited to just lifting small things. The cube played holovids of Jedis of the past lifting huge and heavy things, like wreckage after an earthquake, or a crashed hoverbus that some criminals had been using as a barricade, shooting out from behind. And animal influence. That was a variation of the Jedi mind trick, but used on animals, to make them friendly to you and get them to do what you wanted them to. Ezra could see definite uses to that too. Animals could make great distractions, and Ezra had never been above using misdirection back in his days of pickpocketing.

He wanted to start practicing everything immediately. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible where he was right now. And how he was right now. His side needed a couple weeks without strenuous exercise to heal. At least that was his own diagnosis. He'd never been injured quite this badly before, but he had taken his share of scrapes, and even some blaster bolts. This wouldn't have stopped him from stealing if he'd been back on Lothal, without a credit to his name, but he would have tried to stick to safer marks and made sure he had escape routes that weren't too strenuous for a couple weeks.

Plus the ship was too small to practice jumping inside it, and in the spaceport trying to jump over his ship was a little too conspicuous. He decided to wait until after leaving port to practice that.

Same with the animal influence. There were animals around, but trying to charm them would draw attention.

Telekinesis though, that was something Ezra could work with.

In the cargo hold, he'd discovered the large, hinged panel on the wall folded down to form a table, and that two smaller panels, closer to the ground, could also be folded down to form chairs on either side of it. On the opposite wall was another panel that could be folded down into a bench, or a small sleeping sofa. It was a great space saver since the cargo hold was pretty small.

Ezra had left the table and one of the chairs folded down. He sat there as he started his practicing, after placing several objects on the table top: the core of a piece of fruit he'd bought that morning for breakfast, an unopened ration pack (he'd decided to hold off on eating the ration packs since they'd keep forever, and he could eat them in emergencies), an old caf canteen that he'd found wedged under the pilot's seat, and had either belonged to Cel or her lousy husband, and finally his busted up pilot's helmet. That was a good enough assortment to start practicing with, he decided. Then he focused on trying to lift them.

The fruit core was the lightest, so he started with that. It was difficult. And frustratingly slow. But the holocron had made note that becoming frustrated inhibited progress. So Ezra did his best to stay calm and relaxed. After twenty minutes, he was able to get the fruit core to wobble. After an hour he got it to rise a few inches off the table. Then, in his joy, he pumped one fist and broke his concentration. And the fruit core fell back to the table.

He practiced every day while on Alderaan. By the end of the first week, he could lift the objects with what he considered decent reliability. All of them. Even the heavy pilot helmet.

His second week, he started practicing with his blasters. That was a lot more fun. He made sure that their safeties were on, so he wouldn't accidentally shoot himself or anything on his ship. Then he'd lay them down on the floor at the opposite end of the cargo hold and summon them into his hands. By the end of the first day, he'd mastered that, and had his blasters flying into his hands so fast they stung his palms when they connected. He wasn't sure if it was because he was improving in general, or because he enjoyed that exercise a lot more. Or maybe a mix of the two.

At nights he would lay in his cabin and use the holocron to bring up old vids and docs about the history of the Jedi, their philosophies and principals, and their Code. And he quickly came to a conclusion.

They were idiots.

Well meaning idiots. But still idiots.

Sure, all those principals sounded good and everything. Protect those who can't protect themselves. Stand up for what's right. Etc . . . But try to apply their code in the modern universe and you got the recipe for their extinction. It was no wonder the Jedi had been wiped out by the Empire at the onset of the Empire. How could someone possibly hope to fight an unyielding regime like the empire with justice and righteousness? No. The only way to strike back against a regime like that was to do it on its own level. You had to be sneaky, and ruthless, and while there was nothing wrong with showing mercy if it was within your power, if you made a threat and they challenged you, you had to go through with your threat. Because if you didn't, if you showed how unwilling you were to do whatever you had to for victory, your enemies would take advantage of it and walk all over you.

Ezra would never have been able to take over that Star Destroyer if he'd tried to do things like a Jedi. Or if he'd been a Jedi, and Kallus had known it. Because then Kallus would have believed he wouldn't really keep the life support systems off and kill them all.

Ezra would have, though. If the army on that Star Destroyer hadn't evacuated, Ezra would have killed them all. And if they'd tried to blast their way in, he would have done all he could to make good on his promise to drag them into death with him.

Nice guys didn't win wars. And Ezra would never have made it as a Jedi.

* * *

The day that his prepaid port fees were to run out, Ezra left Alderaan. He wasn't the universe's greatest pilot by any means, but he'd learned a few things from while hijacking that Star Destroyer. He managed to break atmosphere without any incidents and set a course for Dantooine.

From what he knew about that planet was that it was similar to Lothal. A few scattered cities, but mainly lots of wide open space. He could park his ship somewhere out in the middle of nowhere and not have to worry about port fees.

Or people watching him do his Force training.

Ezra was pleased to be able to report, or at least he would have if he'd had anyone to report to, that he managed to land in an isolated area of the Dantooine wilderness without crashing his ship.

And once there he started to train in earnest, since he'd judged his wounds were healed well enough. His jumps, which had always been good at, got even better. By the end of the first day, he could leap clear over his ship with ease, like a loth-cat jumping over a rock or mound of dirt.

His telekinesis improved too. There were plenty of fallen trees for him to practice with, so he could gauge how big and heavy something could be that he could still lift. Despite failing to uproot any of the many big, still living trees, he did manage to slowly levitate a fallen tree that was several meters long. And he learned to call his blasters to his hands from further away. Or even if they were out of his sight. Even if they were behind him and he stretched his hands backwards at awkward angles to receive them. His blasters continued to remain the easiest things for him to Force lift. As long as he was in within about fifty meters of them, he could use his telekinesis to send them flying into his hands. Once some kind of bird had the misfortune to get between him and his blasters while he was training. It went down with a squawk and a bunch of feathers flying everywhere. Ezra had roasted fowl for dinner that night.

After that he started deliberately trying to use the Force on living things. He managed to halt birds in midflight, then release them without hurting them. That felt like a triumph. And it didn't give him that momentary flash of guilt that killing that first bird had, even though that had been an accident.

From there he moved to trying to use Force suggestions on the animals. He managed to charm the birds into landing on his wrist. And he convinced what appeared to be some sort of fluffy, puff ball rodent to come right up to him and let him pet it. When it snuggled up to him and fell asleep in his lap seemingly of its own accord, Ezra was tempted to try keeping it as a pet. His conscience won out, though. He doubted that it would like living on his ship for the rest of its life, and he wasn't positive that he'd always be able to take care of it. So, when it woke, he gave the little puffball a final pat on the head then sent it on its way.

While he trained, he kept track of the days. Tatooine would be his next stop. He just wanted to make sure that things had settled down enough there that it was safe for him to go back.

One week. That was how long Ezra decided to stay on Dantooine. Maybe camping out there a little longer would have been safer, but Ezra was impatient. He wanted to see Luke again. More than that, he had the feeling Luke wasn't doing so great. Luke undoubtably thought that Bossk had handed him over to the Empire and Ezra just knew that the blond teen was feeling guilty about it. Heck, it was probably tearing him up. If Ezra could have, he would have sent Luke a holomessage to put his mind at ease, but he didn't even know how to go about finding out the contact code for someone on another planet.

Ezra filled every day on Dantooine with training and learning. When he wasn't practicing physical training, he was learning from the holocron, calling up recordings of Jedi Masters sparing and holobook articles about Jedi weapons. Particularly about lightsabers. What he found about those weren't encouraging. From the schematics, they weren't hard to make. It was just finding a power source that was nearly impossible. But Ezra was not discouraged. He'd seen him and Luke both with lightsabers. He had faith that what he'd seen would come to pass.

Finally, the day he'd decided to return to Tatooine came. As much as Ezra had enjoyed training here, and on Alderaan, as well as having downtime for the first time since his parents were taken away, he was ready to go. Spending so much time by himself was starting to get boring.

In his studies the past week, he'd come across some holobook chapters about piloting. And though every ship was different, those chapters had still been immensely helpful. Now Ezra knew about things like preflight checks, and a couple other procedures to follow during takeoff. Luke could definitely have done it better, but Ezra was proud of his progress. Maybe he could improve even more if Luke still wanted to go to Mos Whatever with him to look at old tech. Luke could give him some pointers. Hell, it might even be worth it to hang around Tatooine longer just to get some lessons from Luke. And slowly work on convincing him to ditch the desert rock he was marooned on and follow Ezra into space on an adventure.

He exited hyperspace at the same coordinates he had the last time he went to Tatooine. Though this time his ship was a whole lot smaller and less conspicuous than the Star Destroyer he'd been in last time. He followed down the same flight path he had last time to the planet and planned to set a course for Anchorhead, the little nowhere town where he and Luke had refueled Luke's speeder last time, so they'd have enough fuel to get to Mos Wherever.

But a tugging in Ezra's mind stopped him from setting the course he'd planned. That tugging that he'd always thought of before as his instincts, which he was now coming to recognize as the will of the Force. Ezra smiled and changed course, heading instead back to that canyon where he'd first met Luke. He had the feeling that he'd find exactly what he was looking for there.

* * *

Luke screamed in frustration and threw a rock the size of his fist as hard as he could across the canyon.

"Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!"

Usually he was pretty good about controlling his temper, but at that moment Luke hated the galaxy.

It was his first day away from the farm after being grounded. Because in the end, he'd confessed everything that had happened to his uncle.

Everything. Including how he'd met Ezra. He'd originally planned to leave that part out, but after Ezra had been taken by that bounty hunter, there had been no reason to keep it a secret from his family. He knew it was useless, but a part of him had hoped that there was some secret Uncle Owen had been holding back, some way that they might be able to help Ezra and save him from the Empire. He hadn't been surprised to find out there was nothing they could do. But the realization had been crushing all the same.

And so Ezra was gone now. Probably dead. Probably tortured and dead. And Luke had been grounded for a month, but hadn't given a damn about that. He'd deserved it. Just letting that slimy Trandoshan walk off with his unconscious new friend. Ezra had been the coolest, most capable guy he'd ever met. He'd defied the Empire and stolen a Star Destroyer, and lived to tell about it! He might have been a killer, he definitely wasn't perfect, and he sure as hell was no saint, but Luke still thought he'd been a good guy. He'd warned that pilot back in the cantina. The human teenage pilot with the Wookiee friend. And he'd saved a bunch of slaves from Kessel. And he'd kept Luke alive during the riot.

But when he'd needed someone watching his back, Luke had let him down.

He deserved to be grounded. He deserved worse than that. He was a terrible friend. And a disgrace to anti-Imperials everywhere.

Luke had thought about running away and trying to find and link up with some Rebels. They were all over the holonews lately. You couldn't go a day without hearing about organized slave escapes, or weapons factory sabatoges, or dozens of other things that were throwing wrenches into the cogs of the machine that was the Empire. But Luke knew he wasn't worthy to join up with them after letting Ezra down so badly. Then again, he also didn't think those Rebels were worthy of his help either. He remembered what Ezra had told him about how they treated him. Now they were all striking while the iron was hot. Capitalizing on the instability that had been caused by the Empire losing a Star Destroyer. There were even rumors that all these isolated attacks against the Empire might be organized somehow. Like there was a coordinating force holding them all together and directing them.

Luke didn't care if that was true. Because he doubted they cared about the boy who'd been sacrificed to make this happen. Ezra had deserved better.

Honestly, he'd prefer to be back at home. Even though his grounding had ended a week ago, he hadn't gone out or gone anywhere since then. He just stayed around the farm, wallowing in his misery. There was nothing he felt like doing. Everything made him think of Ezra, the boy who could have been his friend. Who should have been his friend. These days his dreams were haunted by shadows of what might have been. There was no worse torture than those dreams. In them he saw himself and Ezra growing up together and flying across the galaxy on one adventure after another. They visited dim and smoky cantinas in dozens of different systems, where Ezra would gamble and win big, and chat up the prettiest girls in the dive. They smuggled cargo of rare medicinal spices right past the Empire. They humiliated battalions of bucketheads. They got in trouble and got themselves, and each other, out.

In his dreams he was as close to Ezra has he'd ever been to Biggs. Closer, sometimes it seemed like. He felt like Ezra was the brother he never had.

He woke up every morning crying.

Today Aunt Beru had finally gotten fed up with him moping about the house, as she put it. She kicked him out and told him not to come back until supper. Which was why Luke had walked here. He would have taken his speeder, but it had gotten blown up in the Mos Eisley riots. If not for Ezra, he might very well have been in it when it blew up. Yet another reminder that he owed Ezra his life and would never be able to pay him back.

Luke was so focused on his misery that he didn't notice the ship until it was nearly on top of him. And when he saw it, all he could do was stare.

Because it looked like the ship he'd seen in his dreams. The one he and Ezra had been flying all across the universe in.

Hope started hammering in his heart. Was this one of those times when the things he dreamed actually happened? Could it really be?

The ship landed. A little roughly, like the pilot was new or unused to the controls. Seconds later the hatch opened and out stepped –

"EZRA!"

Luke's shout echoed throughout all of Beggar's Canyon as he charged forward to hug his friend, but he moved a little too fast and collided with Ezra a little too hard, and ended up tackling him onto the ramp. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Ezra didn't seem mad. In fact, the blue haired teen was laughing.

"Good to see you too, Luke."

"You're here. I'm so glad. How'd you escape? I'm so sorry, Ezra, I tried to stop Bossk, but I couldn't, and how'd you get away? Are you safe now? Relatively safe? Do you need a place to hide and lay low for awhile? Is the Empire coming after you? I'm so damn glad to see you, I was afraid I'd never see you again, but now you're here –"

"Breathe, Luke," laughed Ezra. "And if you could get off me when you have the chance, that would be great."

"Oh. Sorry," blushed Luke and he hastily clambered off his friend. "I just, I'm really, really, really glad to see you."

"I can see that." Ezra smirked and accepted the hand Luke held out to him to help him up.

"I thought you were dead. Or the Empire had you."

"For a minute I thought that was how things were heading too," Ezra told him. "But I lucked out."

"How?" Luke couldn't wait to hear the story of how Ezra escaped this time.

"Bossk. He never planned on handing me over," explained Ezra. And while Luke was a little disappointed that he wasn't going to get to hear another daring escape story, he was still glad to hear that. "Oh, I'm sure he thought about it. But I think . . . I think Bossk likes me. Enough not to throw me under the hover bus without a good reason. He took our share of the bounty on Jabba though. Sorry about that."

"It's fine," said Luke. And honestly, it was. "I don't care about that. I'm just so glad you're alright. I . . . I thought you were dead and . . . I couldn't stand it. This place. Being here unable to do anything when you were being taken to the Empire. I didn't know what to do."

"There was nothing you could do," said Ezra. "It wasn't your fault –"

"But I still felt like I should have done something!" Luke said desperately. "Ezra . . . please . . . I know I have no right to ask you this, but please, get me the hell off this rock! Take me with you wherever you're going! Please. I know I'm useless, and naïve, and I'm not good in a fight or anything, but I'm a really good pilot. Even Dengar admitted it. And I can teach you. Please just –"

"You want to leave your home?"

Luke couldn't read the expression Ezra was looking at him with. He couldn't tell if Ezra approved or disapproved.

"Yes. I have to leave," insisted Luke. "While you were gone, I realized that more than ever before. I've wanted to get out of here for a long time. Ever since my friends all left for the academy. But when you were taken . . . when someone I cared about was taken by the Empire and I couldn't do a damn thing about it, I realized that if I stay here, I'm never going to be able to do any good for anybody. I'm going to rot here, while the rest of the universe is out there rotting under the Empire's reign, and if I don't do something to try to get out of here then I'm going to deserve that! I can't just sit back and do nothing anymore! Please, Ezra! If you don't get me out of here I'm going to go insane!"

"Easy," said Ezra, and suddenly a smile lit up his face. He slapped a hand down on Luke's shoulder and squeezed it briefly. Then a look of pure mischief crossed his face. "So, you care about me, huh?"

Luke flushed slightly. "Well, yeah. I haven't known you very long, but we're friends, aren't we? I mean, you kept me alive during that riot. You could have easily left me behind. I wasn't any use to you anymore. And . . . this is probably going to sound dumb, but . . . I've just got this feeling that you and I are meant to be friends. Great friends."

He waited for Ezra to laugh, but the laughter never came.

When he dared to look at Ezra, he saw that it looked like Ezra was trying to screw up his courage to say something that he thought might be ridiculed. But before Luke could tell him that whatever it was that he wanted to say, he wouldn't laugh at it, Ezra found his voice and started talking.

"You have reflexes better than any other human you know, except maybe me," Ezra started. "Better reflexes than probably almost every alien you've ever met too. But more than that, you know when things are going to happen before they actually do. Sometimes you see it like a holovid in your mind seconds before it goes down. Other times you just feel it. Sometimes without knowing what it is. You just know something's about to happen."

Luke stared wordlessly at Ezra as the other teen stared right through him, voicing things that Luke had never told anyone.

"Sometimes you dream things and they come true. Sometimes you see peoples' faces in your mind before you ever meet them. And sometimes other things you can't explain happen to you. Like you jump far higher than you should be able to without wearing a pair of jump boots. Or you focus really hard on something moving, like a chance cube that's just landed wrong for you, and then it does move. Without you physically touching it."

"How do you know these things?" asked Luke. He thought that he'd be freaked out by this but somehow he wasn't. And he knew Ezra's answer before the other teen gave it to him.

"Because I'm the same," Ezra answered. "I'm like you."

Luke grinned. He knew it.

"If the Republic hadn't collapsed fifteen years ago, if the Empire hadn't taken over, then today you and I would probably both be Jedi Knights. Or in training to be Jedi Knights," said Ezra. "Because what we are is Force sensitive. And that means –"

"Jedi Knights?" Luke grabbed Ezra by his forearms. Ezra jumped in slight surprise at the physical contact. "We would have been Jedi? That is so cool!"

"I – um, yeah," said Ezra with a slight laugh. "I guess. Except . . . well, never mind. Being Force sensitive on its own is still really cool. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's the only reason I'm still alive. There have been so many times in my life that I've been on the edge of disaster, the edge of death, and then things eek just far enough to the right that I survive. Like I jump a whole lot higher than I should be able to and get away. Or I know right where someone's going to be shooting and when they pull down on the trigger, so I know exactly when to leap away."

Luke winced at how casually Ezra was talking about how people had tried to kill him. He decided to bring this conversation back in a happier direction.

"So you know then? That you and I are going to be great friends. Because you've seen it too." Luke tried not to make this a question.

He was relieved when Ezra nodded.

"Yeah. I know. I knew before I even met you. Because I saw you in a vision I had while I was crashing down on this planet. When I stumbled upon you, I wasn't sure if you were real or not," admitted Ezra. "But in my vision, you and I were best friends. In my vision I trusted you – and you have to understand that I _don't_ trust people. Where I come from, trusting other people or relying on them for anything just gets you let down, and hurt, or killed if you're particularly stupid about it. But you and I were flying around the galaxy, getting into all kinds of trouble, facing down stormtroopers, and you had my back, and I knew that you always would. So when I met you face to face, I wasn't sure what to think. I didn't know that much about the Force then. I thought it was just my instincts, and since those have kept me alive, I trusted them. That's why I'm here now. Because I knew that we're meant to become friends. So I came back here to find you, and let you know that I'm alright."

"Really?" Luke grinned.

Ezra's face fell slightly. "No. I mean yes, but not . . . that's not the whole truth. I mean everything I told you was true, but I didn't just come here to let you know I was alright. I came here . . . because . . . because I wanted you to come with me."

Luke slapped his shoulder. "What? You're acting like that's a bad thing –"

"It's not necessarily a good one," protested Ezra. "And I'm trying to be completely honest with you. Because . . . because if we're meant to be best friends, I think I owe that to you, Luke. If you come with me, nothing in your life is going to be certain anymore. Right now you have a family. You have food every day. You don't have people shooting at you, and you don't have to worry where your next meal's coming from. If you go with me, and we end up messing with the Empire and doing the kinds of things I saw the two of us doing in my visions, then you might not be able to come back to this –"

"And I'm fine with that," said Luke.

"Ever," emphasized Ezra.

Luke glared at him stubbornly. "I told you, being stuck here while all my friends are gone and rebelling against the Empire is hell to me, Ezra. I know you might think I'm naïve and ungrateful, and maybe I am, but I can't stay here. I can't live this life anymore. Not when I know you're out there, doing who knows what, stirring up trouble for the Empire and making an actual difference. And I don't want to let you do that alone. _I won't let you_ do that alone. When you leave this rock you're taking me with you and that is final."

Luke stared hard at Ezra, willing him to understand that this was what was going to happen. This was what had to happen, and Luke wasn't going to accept anything less.

Ezra stared at him, a mix of emotions crossing his face. But uncertainty soon melted into a smile. When he spoke at first it seemed to be to himself. And he seemed to be amused. "Is that what it feels like?"

"What what feels like?" asked Luke, trying to still sound stern but he knew he couldn't keep up this act. If Ezra wanted to fight about this, Luke knew he wouldn't win. But fortunately, Ezra didn't seem like he wanted to fight.

"Nevermind. Unless you know what a Jedi mind trick is already?"

"Huh?"

Ezra waved one hand. "Later it is then. That'll be a lesson for further down the line. The holocron says that's an advanced technique so it's probably better to start off with the simpler ones like Force jumps."

"Huh?" Luke said again.

"Stuff you're going to learn," said Ezra. Then he looked at Luke, and Luke swore he saw Ezra's eyes start to glow. "I found this thing called a holocron, which is like a datapad, but in cube form, and only usable by Force sensitives. And it's chalk full of censored information about Jedi, and their powers, and all the things they'd learn in their training. Look what I've learned how to do."

Ezra's excitement was contagious. Luke had no idea what he was going to do, but he knew whatever it was, it would be awesome. So when Ezra gestured to the far side of the canyon, Luke turned his attention there. And his eyes widened as he saw a small boulder, almost as tall as he was, lift off the ground without any machinery to hoist it, and start floating across the chasm toward them.

"You're doing that? That's amazing! That thing's gotta weigh a ton!"

"Yeah. It's heavy alright," Ezra said, his voice a little strained. "Gotta concentrate hard to hold it uuuuup – can't do it!"

And just like that, the boulder plummeted. Seconds later it smashed into the canyon floor, sending dust and debris flying all around it. But from up at the top of the canyon, Luke and Ezra were unaffected. More or less. Ezra was sweating a little more now. Or maybe that was just because of the Tatooine heat.

"Damn. I ruined my attempt at showing off," Ezra said, giving a tired laugh.

"No, no. That was awesome!" said Luke.

"You think so?" Ezra grinned. "Well check out this."

And then Ezra _moved_. Really moved. Like he had during the riot, when they reached the spaceport, and he leapt onto the roof. Except this time he was even faster, and more graceful. One moment he was on the ground, the next he was in the air, twisting like an acrobat, sailing weightlessly over his ship and out of sight. Luke heard the faint crunch of rubble when Ezra landed. Then seconds later, Ezra was in the air again. This time he landed on his ship, right above where Luke stood near the entry ramp.

Luke stared at him for a long minute. Ezra preened under his admiration.

"You can teach me that?" he asked finally.

Ezra nodded. "Yep. That and more. It might take a couple weeks for you to get it down but –"

"I don't care how long it takes," said Luke. "I'll study, practice, whatever it takes. I want to be able to do that."

Ezra dropped down to stand beside him again. And his smile was so bright that another sun might just as well have been lit in Tatooine's skies. He clapped his hand on Luke's shoulder then turned him toward the ship. "Why don't you come aboard? You and I have a lot talk about. And it's way too hot out here."

* * *

That night Luke ate dinner with his uncle and aunt for the last time. Or at least for what would be the last time in a very long time. Someday, Luke told himself, he'd come back. Not to stay, but to visit. Because he did love his aunt and uncle. They'd raised him as their own on a world where things like charity were in very short supply. He knew he was lucky to have had them.

But the time had come for him to leave the nest. There was a war starting out there. Luke had seen the signs for awhile. People had been rebelling against the Empire more and more for the past few years. And after Ezra stole that Star Destroyer, everything had escalated. Ezra had started something, Luke knew. Things were only going to get bigger. He could feel it.

And he needed to be out there, doing something. He couldn't just stay safely at home and complain about how much he hated the Empire when people he knew were actually out there doing something about it, and risking their lives. Maybe Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru couldn't understand that now. But hopefully, in that distant someday when he returned home, he'd be enough of a grown up to get them to understand why he'd had to leave.

Luke was on his best behavior that night. He didn't argue with his uncle at all. He helped Aunt Beru clear the table, then with the dishes. He cleaned up a few things around the house. Then he bid them good night, making sure to give his aunt a kiss on the cheek. He wanted to give his uncle a hug, but knew that if he did, Uncle Owen would realize he was planning something and put a stop to it.

Luke waited until they were both asleep, then quickly packed his bags. He didn't have much that he wanted to take with him. His tools, some clothes, all the money he had saved up, and a few other odds and ends. Finally, he slipped out the front door after leaving a note for his aunt and uncle on the table. In it, he told them the things that he'd always wanted to, but had never really been able to voice right, when his uncle was always shooting his arguments down. He thought it sounded better now that he'd gotten it down on paper. He ended by telling them that he hoped someday they'd understand why he had to leave, and that they would be proud of him. And by telling them that he loved them. Because he knew that joining the fledgling fight against the Empire wasn't a game, and there was every chance he could get killed doing it. And he couldn't bear to leave that unsaid.

Ezra was waiting for him over the ridge, in his ship. _Their_ ship. That was something Ezra had been insistent on. That if Luke was going with him, they were in this together. If the Heavenly Blue was going to be both of theirs' home then it belonged to both of them.

He was sitting on the open ramp, when Luke arrived, enjoying the relative coolness that sundown had brought. Ezra stood to greet him.

"Everything go ok?"

"Everything went as planned," said Luke.

Ezra gave him a gentle slap to the shoulder. "Well, then. Welcome home."

"Thanks. What's this?" Luke asked as he followed Ezra inside and saw something big on the floor of the cargo hold, wrapped in a tarp.

"Oh, you remember that TIE fighter I crashed in the desert back before I met you? Well, I flew over, to check and see if it was still there, and it was. So I scavenged its weapons systems," said Ezra brightly. "All we've got right now is a meteor chaser. So, not a lot of firepower. I figured we could use an upgrade."

"Good thinking," said Luke. "But we're not installing it here, are we?"

"No. I was thinking of doing that in Mos Espa," said Ezra. "Here seems a little too close to your aunt and uncle for comfort."

"Yeah." Luke gave a slight laugh.

Ezra hit the button that closed the ramp, then headed to the cockpit. Luke followed after setting his bags down in the cargo hold. There would be time to put them away and get settled in later, he decided.

He was surprised when Ezra slouched down into the copilot's seat. Ezra took note of his expression and gestured to the empty pilot's chair.

"Between the two of us, you're the better pilot," he said. "If you want it, the pilot's seat is yours."

Luke took it.

The flight to Mos Espa was smooth. Uneventful, but not unremarkable, since it was Luke's first time piloting the Heavenly Blue. Instantly, he knew that he was in love. She handled like a dream. He couldn't wait to actually take her out into space, above Tatooine's atmosphere. But for now that would have been a waste of fuel.

Ezra seemed content in the copilot's seat. Luke was a little surprised about that. Ezra had struck him as the sort of person who liked to be in control of his own fate as much as possible. Luke thought that it meant something, Ezra handing over the pilot's seat to him. He thought it meant Ezra trusted him, as well as acknowledged him as the better pilot. He remembered, with a slight lump in his throat, that Ezra had come back to Tatooine for him. Because he wanted those visions he'd had where the two of them were best friends to come true. Maybe giving up the pilot's seat for him was what he considered a step toward making them come true. He was putting his fate in Luke's hands.

Luke made a silent vow to himself right then and there. He would make sure Ezra never had reason to regret that.

* * *

Ezra's reunion with the Ghost crew is coming up. Not next chapter, but probably the one after that if all goes according to plan. And let me tell you, Ezra is not going to be happy to see them. He wouldn't be happy to see them under any circumstances, but the ones he meets them under makes it much, much worse.

If anyone wants a better idea of what Ezra's ship looks like just Google "Hildian Seeker." I meant to mention that last time, but I was in a hurry when writing my author note and forgot. The Hildian Seeker is actually a ship from Destiny, so plenty of pics will come up. I know my description of it didn't do it justice, but it's a rather difficult ship to describe.

I'm back at college now, so I'm back to the studying grind. But I managed to update all of my stories at least once over break. :) How often I'm able to update in the coming months will depend on how much homework my profs feel like giving me, but I'll do my best to keep the stories coming.

Please leave a review on your way out. : )


	5. Chapter 5

Quick Author Note: Sorry for taking so long to get an update. Classes have been brutal this semester. But the end is in sight!

On another note, the theme song for this chapter is "This Game." Specifically the LeeandLie English cover of it. Check it out on YouTube. :)

* * *

 **Chapter 5:** This Game

They landed at the Mos Espa spaceport late that night, and paid the port fees for a week's stay. Ezra wasn't sure how long they'd be there, but a week seemed reasonable. And Luke said that the city was having some trouble with Sand People, who sounded like big trouble, so it was safer to dock in the city than outside the city's outskirts, even if they could have parked there for free. There was no need to tempt fate when they didn't have to, and it clearly made Luke feel better to not be risking a confrontation with those Sand People.

They flipped a coin to see which of them would get the top bunk, at Ezra's insistence, even though Luke offered just to take the bottom bunk, since Ezra had been using the top one until now. Ezra ended up winning the coin toss, but if he'd lost he would have been a good sport about it. He liked Luke. He wanted things to be fair between them.

Sharing the small cabin was odd. Ezra couldn't remember the last time he'd slept so close to another person. He guessed it must have been back when his parents were still alive and he sometimes slipped into bed with them after a nightmare. Ezra was a little worried that he would have a hard time sleeping with someone else right below him, since his time on the streets had ingrained it in him that someone that close while he was completely vulnerable was a Very Bad Thing. His worries turned out not to be completely unfounded. He did have trouble drifting off, but once he fell asleep, he stayed asleep. So it seemed that his subconscious mind had accepted Luke sharing his sleeping space, at least.

They woke up early so that they could modify the Heavenly Blue's weapons system, incorporating the TIE's weaponry which Ezra had scavenged. He and Luke discussed it briefly before deciding to keep the meteor chaser under the pilot's control, and installing the TIE's canon so that it was under the copilot's control and could swivel to target enemies either in front of them or to the rear.

"It's the strangest thing," Luke remarked as they worked. "It's like something similar used to be right here but was taken out. All the framework, the wirework, it's all here, just waiting for a weapon to be hooked up to."

"It's nice when it's easy," said Ezra. And it really was. It took them far less time than he'd expected. They were finished before the junk shops even opened.

"So, what exactly are we looking for again?" asked Luke as they ate breakfast.

"Pre-Empire stuff," answered Ezra. "Datapads or anything else that might have anything about the Jedi on it. And any of these components."

He activated the holocron and had it bring up a hologram of the harder to find parts that were needed to build a lightsaber.

"That one right there will be the most difficult," Ezra said, tapping the picture that hung in the air. "It's called a kyber crystal. They're used to power lightsabers –"

"Lightsabers? We're making lightsabers?" Luke's face lit up.

"We're getting lightsabers somehow," said Ezra. "I've seen it. But I've always found that if you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. So instead of just sitting around, assuming that someday they'll come to us, we're going to start looking for what we need to make them."

"Sounds good," said Luke. "Are we looking for anything else?"

Ezra shrugged. "If there is anything else, I think we'll know it when we see it. Or rather when we feel it. I plan on relying on the Force to help us find what we need. I'm not sure how well that will work. But if that doesn't work, we can always try looking for things the old fashioned way."

"By digging through piles and piles of junk?" Luke shuddered. "Let's hope that the Force is on our side today."

At first it didn't seem like it was. When Ezra and Luke got started, they made their way through the town, past junk shop after junk shop, pausing in front of each building for a few moments, trying to feel if this one held what they were looking for. And every time, after a few moments, they would look at each other and see it in the other's eyes that he hadn't felt anything either. Then they would move on.

Ezra could tell that Luke didn't have a lot of faith in this approach. The slightly taller teen didn't complain or anything. In fact, he wanted it to work. He just didn't think it would. Ezra wasn't sure if he was able to tell all that, just by reading Luke's body language, or if he was feeling it in the Force. Maybe it was a bit of both.

He, however, had a feeling that this approach was going to work. It was just another version of falling back to relying on his instincts, something he'd been doing for years, without ever even knowing that there was some greater power lending him luck and guiding him. This method had served him well time after time. And his instincts were telling him that it was going to work for him now.

But by the time lunch rolled around, and they still hadn't gone into a single store, Ezra had to admit it was taking longer than he thought it would.

"Should we buy something to eat?" Luke asked. "Maybe go back to that soup shack we passed a little while back and take a break? And maybe after that start browsing through some of the shops even if they don't feel right?"

Ezra hadn't really been planning on eating lunch. Even though he currently had enough money and food for three meals a day, it was in his nature to save whatever he could. Honestly, to him, eating two meals a day, like he'd been doing since Alderaan felt a little wrong. Like he was being wasteful.

"Let's keep going a little longer," said Ezra, to put off having to decide whether to have a meal or skip it. He wouldn't ask Luke to skip it, but if he tried to, he knew they'd have an awkward conversation. Maybe it would be easier just to eat a lunch today. Something small. Or something that he could save part of and eat that as his dinner. "We can stop at the next food place we come to."

But as fate would have it, the thought of lunch was soon the last thing on either teen's mind.

They passed four more junk shops. But at the fourth one, they paused, as they had in front of every other one.

And that was when Ezra felt it. And heard it. There was a tugging at the edge of his mind, pulling him into the shop. And he heard that sound, that smooth, high pitched tone that he had come to realize was associated with the Force. His eyes snapped to Luke's and he could see immediately that Luke felt it too.

Grins lit both their faces and they spoke to each other in unison. "This one."

* * *

The shop didn't look promising. It was dark and grungy. Scraps and piles of broken stuff were stacked haphazardly on counters, in corners, and from floor to ceiling in some places. It kind of formed walls, or at least barricades. On a world with heavy Imperial influence, it probably would have been deemed a safety hazard, and the shop owner would have been fined or forced to shut down when the Empire confiscated all his assets.

"Hello?" Luke called as they made their way amongst the junk. "Anyone here?"

Ezra made a slight face at the idea of relying on a shopkeeper for help. Any shopkeeper, let alone one who left his wares piled all about like this. His interactions with shop owners in the past had always been rather unpleasant. And he had the feeling that they weren't going to get better anytime soon.

"I'm here! In the back! If you want help you come here to me!" called a rude, obnoxious voice, causing Luke and Ezra to trade glances again.

Ezra shrugged. Luke looked a little uncertain but nodded and started in the direction of the voice. Ezra followed. His instincts weren't warning him of any danger. And he couldn't pinpoint what the Force had drawn them to. In fact, checking out whoever had been speaking seemed like the right move.

He had second thoughts, however, when they found the speaker. It was an alien of some bizarre type that Ezra had never seen before. It was short and squat. So stout that it looked like its wings wouldn't support it. Its skin was a dusty blue, underneath a layer of grime. And it was staring at Luke like it had just seen a ghost.

"Ani?" the alien asked. "Little Ani?"

Luke glanced back at Ezra uncertainly.

"No. No, of course, you're not him," the alien said, as he realized his mistake. You're far too young. Far too young to be Anakin."

"Anakin?" Luke suddenly straightened up. "You mean Anakin Skywalker? You knew my father?"

The alien looked surprised. "A father? Anakin? Anakin could not be your father. He was a Jedi."

 _"What?"_ Luke and Ezra asked together.

The alien started muttering to himself. Ezra got the feeling that this guy might not be entirely all there in the head.

"He did have that woman though. Maybe. Maybe he was a Jedi and a father. I never really bought into the Jedi being the saints people used to think they were. But they didn't deserve that. Little Ani didn't deserve that."

"That," Ezra realized, was probably the complete and utter annihilation that the Empire had delivered to the Jedi Order. The details might not be part of any public record, but people knew it all the same. The Jedi had been the Empire's first victims.

"You're saying my father was a Jedi?" demanded Luke, striding forward. "What – what are you saying? He wasn't a Jedi. He was a pilot."

"No. He was a Jedi. It was a Jedi that took him away, and he was a Jedi when he came back," said the alien, like he was looking for a fight.

"You're not making any sense!"

Luke was not much of a smooth talker. But Ezra had known that already. It looked like he would have to intervene here.

"Hey, Mr . . . uh, I didn't catch your name . . ." Ezra prompted before Luke could get too red in the face.

"Watto," the alien said, scowling slightly at Ezra.

"Nice to meet you," Ezra said. "I'm Ezra. And this is Luke Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker's son."

"Your mother had to be that woman. The brown haired one who came with the Jedi," said Watto, looking sharply back at Luke.

"So you knew my mother too?" Luke asked. "What was her name?"

"How can I be bothered to learn the names of everyone who marries one of my ex-slaves?"

Luke went rigid. Ezra felt . . . something. Waves of disbelief and anger rolling off his friend.

"What?" asked Luke. "What?"

Ezra grabbed his arm to steady him. He didn't think Luke was going to do something wild like attack Watto, but he didn't want to take the risk.

"Hey, look . . . we might not even be talking about the same Anakin Skywalker here –"

"How many Anakin Skywalkers could there possibly have been?" demanded Luke.

"Yeah, well . . . why don't we just hear what this guy has to say?" Ezra said. He was pretty sure they were talking about the same Anakin too, and had just thrown that suggestion out there to try to put some distance between Luke and the idea that his father might have been a slave. He couldn't even imagine a bombshell like that being dropped on him. If he'd found out that one of his parents had been a slave, and suddenly found himself face to face with their former owner, he'd have probably already been plotting the slave owner's demise.

And if Luke wanted to kill this guy, Ezra would help him. But once this grimy little alien was dead, any information he might have would be lost to them. He tried to will Luke into understanding this, wordlessly. And to his surprise, it kind of seemed to work. Luke stopped radiating anger and disbelief, and sort of broadcasted back to Ezra reluctant understanding.

"You're right. Yeah. We'll listen," said Luke.

"And you'll tell us, right?" Ezra asked Watto. He tried to put some emphasis behind that request.

Watto scowled at him. "You. You are definitely his sons. Don't bother trying to Jedi mind trick me into telling you everything. I'm a Toydarian. Mind tricks don't work on me."

Luke and Ezra both tensed. And Ezra started to think maybe they'd have to kill this guy after all. If he knew they were Force sensitives, and thought they were Jedi, that made him a danger to them.

"Okay," said Ezra. "No mind tricks then. How about money?"

Watto looked both interested and confused. "Money?"

"How much is it worth? Everything you know about Anakin Skywalker?"

Watto seemed internally conflicted with himself for a minute. He opened his mouth and closed it several times, before finally deciding. "No money. Not just for a story. Not to Ani's sons."

Ezra didn't bother correcting his misconception, and hoped that Luke knew better than to either. When you were trying to persuade someone, it never paid to call them out over the little things they got wrong.

"After the story though, maybe we'll do business," said Watto. "I have a few things. Things I set aside to sell to Ani next time he came back. But that was before. Before the Empire. But I kept them, still. In case he came by needing them."

Ezra felt a thrum of interest at the mention of those things, even though he didn't know what they were. He'd been starting to think that the Force had drawn him and Luke here just to hear what Watto had to say. But now it seemed it was also possible he might have some Jedi artifacts to sell them too.

So, Ezra and Luke sat through Watto's story. A story that started when he won two slaves, mother and son, named Shmi and Anakin Skywalker, in a bet on a podrace.

Watto told them about "their father" in great detail. How he'd been a good boy. (A good slave.) Hardworking and useful. Very good with tools, and droids, and building. And at podracing. His reflexes had been phenomenal. He was one of the rare humans capable of podracing. And he'd been the first human ever to with the Boonta Eve Race, winning his freedom in the process, because that Jedi had come snooping about, and convinced Watto to bet Anakin's freedom against a ship.

Anakin had gone after that. Left Tatooine, leaving his mother behind, and running off to the stars with the Jedi, a brown haired girl, some sort of idiotic alien, and an R2 droid. Years later he came back, nearly full grown, with the same human girl by his side, looking for his mother, who Watto had sold to a moisture farmer named Lars who freed her and married her. Then let her get captured by the much feared Sand People, Ezra had heard tell of. Anakin had arrived in time to reclaim her body before the Tusken Raiders could dispose of it. Then he left again, before her funeral, and Watto had never seen him again.

He'd kept track of him though. The Clone Wars began, and Anakin Skywalker was constantly in the news. Until the war ended and the Jedi were declared traitors, and a blanket order for their execution was issued.

Watto hovered over to some sort of lock box that was stuck haphazardly in a huge pile of junk, and banged on its side, making the door spring open.

"I came to acquire these sometime after Shmi died. I held on to them, thinking I could sell them to Anakin when he came back again. They belonged to Jedi, so the Jedi might pay a high price to get them back, no? But then the Jedi were no more, but I held them still. If Anakin came back, he might have need for them himself."

Watto pulled a beat up leather bag out of the lock box and thumped it down on the sole square foot of free counter space. Then he upended it.

Ezra's eyes lit up. And he knew Luke's were doing the same beside him. He could actually feel Luke's excitement, cutting through the shock and numbness that had descended on him as he heard Watto's story. His anger had disappeared as the tale wore on, probably because he'd come to the same conclusion that Ezra had about Watto. The alien might have been a slave owner, and probably had a mountain of faults. But he had genuinely liked Anakin. Possibly even cared for him. And proof of this lay on the counter before them.

Lightsabers.

Not one, but two of them. They had to be worth a fortune on the black market, whether they worked or not. But Watto had been holding onto them, keeping them in reserve for Anakin in case he ever came back.

There were a few other things there too. A datapad, another holocron, and some other small piece of equipment that Ezra didn't recognize. All three of those items had the emblem of the Jedi Order emblazoned on them, advertizing their origins or former owners. But the lightsabers were clearly the queens of the collection.

"Do they both work?" Ezra asked.

Watto nodded. "Test them and see."

The two teens both reached out to take one. Ezra glanced toward the door, making sure no one else had entered the junk shop, then locked eyes with Luke. His friend was grinning in anticipation.

There was no spoken signal between the two, but they both powered up the lightsabers in unison.

Luke's glowed green, just like in Ezra's vision. And Ezra's, well, he'd expected it to be red, like what he'd seen. But instead it was blue. Like Mr. Tough Guy's lightsaber had been, Ezra thought with a little bit of distaste.

But still, a lightsaber was a lightsaber. He couldn't dislike, even if it did bear some resemblance to the weapon of someone he didn't like.

"These are so cool," said Luke, staring at his in awe.

Ezra agreed. But he knew better than to voice as much. At least before settling on a price for them. He powered down his lightsaber and looked at Watto.

"How much?" he asked. "For the lot of it?"

Watto looked back and forth between Luke and Ezra several times. His gaze lingered longer on Luke, and the childlike joy on the blond teen's face as he stared at his lightsaber like a kid with a new toy. Then, finally, the Toydarian named a number.

A very reasonable number.

Normally Ezra would have haggled a little. That's how transactions like this usually worked. But not this time. Because the price Watto was giving them was far, far below what he could ask for even one of the lightsabers on the black market. Trying to get him to go lower would have been wrong.

So Ezra nodded once then started counting out the money. He placed it down on the counter next to Watto for the Toydarian to double check. But he wasn't entirely surprised when the Toydarian simply swept the credits into a drawer without bothering to recount them.

"Wow. I just can't get over this," said Luke. "I mean, I've never had anything this awesome before. And it's mine now? For real?"

"For real," said Ezra, smiling softly. "But you should probably turn it off now. You can play with it more on the ship."

"Oh. Sorry." Luke powered his lightsaber down. Then he looked at Watto. And it seemed he knew too, that Watto had practically given them these weapons. And that he'd been saving them for Anakin all these years. "Thank you, Watto. Really and truly. Thank you."

Watto waved away his thanks and hovered away, clearly dismissing them. From his expression, Ezra got the idea that the Toydarian wanted to be alone now. "Listen to your brother. He's got a better head on his shoulders than you."

Ezra smirked and elbowed Luke. Luke scowled, but it was obvious he was glad that the mood had been lightened.

"Come on, little brother," said Ezra. "Time to go. You were hungry before we got here. I bet you're starving now."

"Yeah," said Luke, and he laughed slightly. Probably to cover up the fact that he was only half a step away from crying. He needed some time to think about all he'd just learned, Ezra knew. Judging by all the emotions that were pouring off him, Luke didn't even know how to feel about this.

They started to walk toward the exit. But then something stopped Ezra.

It was like fingertips at the edge of his mind. A dark but soothing lure, leading him back the way he'd come.

"Ezra?" asked Luke, confused when Ezra stopped following him.

"One second," said Ezra. He didn't bother wondering why Luke didn't feel this thing that was calling out to him. Luke was hardly in a state of mind where he could concentrate.

The tugging led him toward the corner of the room, toward a huge pile of junk. His instincts told him to reach into it. So Ezra did, sliding his hand in the crevice between an old radiator and what seemed to be half a pressurizer. His fingers closed around something hard and smooth, and about the size of his fist. Carefully, Ezra pulled his hand out of the pile and took a look at what he'd found.

It looked like a holocron, he saw immediately. But instead of being a cube, this one was a pyramid. And it was shaded black and red.

"How much for this?" he called out to Watto.

"That? It's junk. Doesn't do anything," said Watto. "You can have it for fifteen credits."

Again, Ezra held off on haggling. He counted out the money and left it on the counter. Then he and Luke left the shop.

* * *

"You okay?"

Luke looked down from his perch on top of the Heavenly Blue. Ezra was looking up at him, trying not to look concerned, and mostly succeeding. But Luke could feel it. Ezra was a little worried about him.

And Luke had to admit he had a reason to be. He felt a little guilty as he realized that of course his behavior would affect his new friend.

After they left the junk shop, Ezra and Luke had found a cantina to eat lunch in. Luke hadn't said much while they waited for their food. He'd been lost in his thoughts. There had been so much to take in. He'd learned more about his father in half an hour, from a complete stranger, than his uncle had ever told him, in all the years Luke lived with him. And not everything he'd learned had been good. But when it was all said and done, and Luke finally figured out how he was feeling, he could honestly say that he'd never been more proud to be the son of Anakin Skywalker.

And he'd never hated the Empire more than he did right now.

His father had clawed his way up from nothing to become a Jedi Knight. Then he'd been killed. Most likely on the day the Empire was founded.

If that was true, his father had died the day before Luke was born.

"I'm okay," said Luke, starting slightly when he realized that Ezra had leapt up beside him. "I was just thinking things over."

Ezra nodded carefully. "It was a lot to take in."

"I got answers to questions I didn't even know to ask," said Luke. "But now I have lots more questions and no way to get answers."

Ezra didn't respond to that. Then again, there was really no way to respond to that.

"I think the Empire killed my father," said Luke.

"Probably," said Ezra. His tone of voice let Luke know that he'd been thinking this over too. It wasn't really too difficult to work out. Anakin Skywalker had been a Jedi. The Empire killed all the Jedi. And his uncle had always said his father died near the end of the Clone Wars. That could have been a lie through and through, except Watto had been keeping track of Anakin. And he made it sound like Anakin had been alive right up until the Republic died and the Empire rose.

"So, I guess we have that in common," Luke said bitterly.

"We have a lot in common," said Ezra. "Including our reasons to hate the Empire. And our means to fight it."

Luke looked at him and felt a thrum of agony in his chest. "Let's get out of here, Ezra."

Ezra looked at him with a vaguely curious expression, clearly waiting for Luke to elaborate. So Luke did.

"Let's get the hell of this rock," Luke said. "I'm so sick of this damn planet. All this sand and nothingness. I want to get out of here and start doing something to make a difference. And I want to do it now."

They'd paid port fees for the whole week. And their original plan had been to stay in town awhile, looking through the city's junk shops for other useful things. But Ezra didn't say a word about any of that.

Instead he stood and held out a hand to Luke, an offer to help him up. Luke took it and let Ezra haul him to his feet. And together they jumped off the side of the ship, and landed on the spaceport floor below them.

They entered their ship and made a beeline to the cockpit. Luke slumped down in the pilot seat, while Ezra took the copilot's chair. They didn't speak a word as Luke did the preflight checks then took off, raising the ship out of the spaceport, above the planet, then finally out of Tatooine's atmosphere.

Space stretched out in front of them, and Luke felt a thrill just thinking about it. He was finally leaving Tatooine. He was finally free. He was off on an adventure with his new best friend, and they were going to make the Empire pay.

But . . . Luke had no idea where to start. Or where they were going for that matter.

"Um, where to?" he asked Ezra, finally breaking the silence.

"Well," said Ezra. "How do you feel about going to Lothal?"

* * *

Kanan stared wearily at the two droids that had somehow gotten aboard their ship in all the confusion. An annoying gold protocol droid, and an old astromech. Great. Just what they needed.

"Karabast! We lost the Disruptors but we picked up these two hunks of junk?" raged Zeb. "Blast it all!"

"Take it easy, Zeb," said Sabine. "At least we all made it out in one piece."

Though that had been a near thing, and they all knew it. Getting into the bay where the mysterious cargo Fulcrum had told them needed to be grabbed had been impossible to do by stealth. For their team, anyway. So Sabine had rigged some explosives to blow the doors out, and they'd tried for a smash and grab. But they hadn't had enough time. Minister Tua had figured out that them sending her to the wrong bay had been a distraction too quickly, and rushed back to the right one. And hearing the explosion had brought more troops and guards running. The job had gone south, and they'd had to run, leaving behind all of the crates. And from what Sabine had heard, they were planning on using those old T-7s as prototypes, and starting new manufacture of them on Lothal.

All in all, that chalked this mission up to a colossal failure. Which was exactly what they needed, what with moral aboard the Ghost being as low as it was these days.

They weren't in the middle of a losing streak, just to be clear. They had more successes than failures lately. And they'd had a lot of missions lately, with really good intel. The jobs had been coming nonstop since that other Rebel cell stole that Star Destroyer, and with it, the priceless cache of information it contained. For the first time in memory, the Ghost's coffers were full. And then some. Just last week they'd buried a couple crates of emergency supplies in case the time ever came that they were in need of it. That cache had included fuel, power cells, blasters, and a whole lot of credit chips.

But even with all their successes, the mood on the Ghost had not reflected it. Because, Kanan realized, even though they won all these small battles, it felt like they lost all the ones that really mattered. Like not saving the Wookiees. Losing the kid. And now losing these Ion Disruptors.

The astromech droid suddenly started beeping. Kanan's binary left something to be desired, but he was able to make out a few words, like "owner" and "reward."

"The little guy says that he's very important to his owner, who he's sure will pay handsomely to get them back," Sabine translated.

Kanan gave a huff of exasperation as Zeb stormed out of the cargo hold. More credits. That for once they didn't need. They wouldn't turn them down, obviously, but . . . well Kanan didn't know.

"Get his owner's contact information," Kanan ordered. "We'll run a check on him before we make any final decisions. And in the meantime, put a couple restraining bolts on those droids."

He needed to report their failure to Hera, who would in turn have to relay it to Fulcrum.

* * *

Ezra didn't know how much he'd missed Lothal until he saw it again, when the Heavenly Blue broke out of hyperspace right above the planet. The golden green and blue planet, swirling with white clouds brought a smile to his face.

"There it is," he told Luke. "My home planet."

"It's pretty," said Luke, looking like he really meant it. "Very green."

That wasn't exactly true. The grass on Lothal was more yellowish-brown than green, and the view from space reflected this. But he guessed that to someone whose entire planet consisted of a desert wasteland, Lothal did look pretty lush.

"And, we're here to mess with the Empire?" Luke asked. "Or because you had some stuff to take care of here?"

Ezra gave him a look. "We're here to mess with the Empire. I didn't leave anything behind on this planet. Nothing I couldn't walk away from. Or that didn't already walk away from me."

"Right. Sorry," Luke said quickly.

Ezra slapped his shoulder. And vaguely wondered when he'd gotten into the habit of touching other people to convey something. "Don't be sorry. We're not here to be sorry. We're here to take revenge on the Empire. For what it's done to both our families."

"Right," said Luke again.

"And we're here specifically because I'm familiar with the planet," said Ezra. "And the Empire's workings here. There's all kinds of places to sabotage and cause them trouble: the Imperial academy, their mining operations, their Capital City headquarters – whoa, look out!"

Luke had felt it too. Something they couldn't see yet, but something that they needed to move to get away from. Even as Ezra spoke, the other teen had grabbed the controls and jetted forward.

Right as another ship appeared out of hyperspace, right on top of their previous position.

Luke laughed a little in exhaultation. "That was close."

"No kidding," said Ezra. "Good thing we're both Force sensitive. Very good thing. Or else we'd probably both be dead right now."

A button on the dashboard lit up. The comms.

"They're trying to contact us," said Ezra.

"Probably to apologize," said Luke, and seemed oblivious to the look of disbelief Ezra sent his way. He went to answer. Ezra stopped him.

"Voice only," Ezra said. Something still didn't feel quite right to him. Besides, whoever was on that ship didn't need to know what they looked like.

"Ok," said Luke. Then he answered the holocall being made to them, after setting it so that the people they were communicating with could only hear them, but not see them.

The same could not be said for the other party though. A screen on the dashboard showed the people hailing them. Who included one Minister Tua, with that stupid hat on her head, and an irate look on her face.

"Unidentified starship," Tua said crossly. "Identify yourself immediately or be fired upon."

"What the heck?" asked Luke. "We didn't do anything! You guys were the ones who almost crashed into us."

"They don't care," muttered Ezra, soft enough that hopefully the comm didn't pick that up. "They're Imperials."

"Identify yourself immediately or be fired upon!" Tua repeated. "By order of the Empire!"

"This is starship –" Luke started.

"Don't tell them the ship's real name!" Ezra hissed.

"Starship . . . A New Hope," stuttered out Luke. "Please hold your fire."

"So that we can shoot first," muttered Ezra, as he began powering up the weapons system.

"State your business in this quadrant," Tua ordered.

"I – er – we –" Luke struggled to come up with a legitimate excuse for them being there. "Uh, smuggling."

Ezra's head snapped up and he stared at him incredulously.

Tua's reaction was quite similar. "What?"

"No! I mean, that's not why we're here. I, uh, was joking!"

"Starship A New Hope, you will power down and prepare for docking immediately," said Tua. "If you resist –"

"Enough talk!" snarled Ezra, as he finished targeting the Imperial ship and started firing.

"What are you doing?" asked Luke, looking shell shocked.

"What we came here to do," Ezra said, and flipped the comms off, because their conversation was no longer any of the Imperials' business. "Now are you going to take evasive action, or would you prefer to just sit here until they start returning fire?"

That woke Luke up. He swung the ship around, getting behind it, since it seemed to have much less firepower in the rear. Ezra continued firing, taking out the Imperial ships communications relay so it couldn't call for backup, then switching to the engines.

"We're going to have to build something to scramble this ship's signature, down on Lothal," said Ezra, remembering how that Rebel ship had that capability. "And maybe get some stealth tech while we're at it."

"Let's survive this first," said Luke. "Then we can discuss modifications to your ship."

 _"Our_ ship," Ezra corrected. "But you're right. Settle this first. Celebrate next. And modify our ship after that."

"Yep. Priorities," laughed Luke.

The other ship had started trying to return fire. But the Heavenly Blue was so nimble, and Luke was so much better a pilot that their shots weren't getting anywhere near the agile little asteroid dodger. Ezra continued firing. And seconds later the Imperial ship's engines were offline.

"Booyah!" Ezra shouted, pumping his fist. "Alright, let's leave these mother fraggers to sort their problems out on their own, and let's go out for drinks."

"Eh, I'm not really a big fan of alcohol," said Luke.

"Fine then. Let's go out for milkshakes – whoa! Whoa! Luke!"

"I feel it!" Luke gunned the engine and the Heavenly Blue jetted backwards, away from the Imperial spacecraft, as fast as it could. Something was wrong, and Luke, like Ezra, could tell that they had to get away from it immediately. And Luke, being the amazing pilot he was, realized in that split second that there was no time to turn around. And luckily for them, the Heavenly Blue could fly backwards just as fast as it could fly forwards. And because of this, they were treated to the sight of the Imperial ship exploding spectacularly, in a golden hued rainbow of colors.

"Ooh, shiny," said Ezra, his eyes glued to the explosion. This was like no explosion he'd ever seen before or heard of. There was fire, yes, but more than that, there was this iridescence to the explosion. And Ezra didn't know what caused it. But he had the feeling that they'd just blown up something really important.

Good.

He glanced over at Luke to see how his friend was taking this. And while the Luke he knew yesterday might have been upset by them killing these Imperials, the Luke of today, the one who knew that the Empire had probably killed his father, seemed perfectly fine with it.

"Well, it's a start," said Luke.

"Yeah," Ezra agreed.

"So," said Luke, swinging the ship around so they could descend down toward Lothal. "Milkshakes?"

Ezra nodded. "Milkshakes."

* * *

Afterwards

"That's very generous, sir," said the Rebel when Bail finished counting out the credit chips that were to be the rebel's reward money for returning C3-P0 and R2-D2.

"I'm very fond of these droids," Bail said, turning his warm gaze onto them. He could tell that the mission had been a failure. He'd known from the moment he saw them, and R2 had been dejected. Having those T7 Ion Disruptors in mass production would mean big trouble. But it was out of his hands now. And he was sure it wasn't this Rebel's fault that he'd failed, anymore than it was R2-D2's fault. Sometimes you did all you could and you still couldn't win. Especially when you were going up against the Empire.

"Then I'm glad we could return them," the Rebel said, and gave R2 a slight pat on the top of his dome. He looked like he was trying to stay positive, but the weight of his failure was heavy on his mind.

"The simplest gesture of kindness," Bail said knowingly, and hoping to put his mind at a bit more ease, "can fill a galaxy with hope."

He saw the Rebel's eyes widen in recognition. "Isn't that . . . a Jedi saying?"

Bail smiled and patted his shoulder, dismissing him, albeit politely. "Safe travels, my friend."

The former-Jedi turned Rebel looked puzzled for only a moment more, then returned Bail's parting words. "Safe travels."

Once the Rebel was gone, Bail looked at C3-P0. With R2, he could take things like confidentiality for granted, but with C3-P0, he still had to ask. "You didn't tell them my name?"

The protocol droid issued a firm denial, then issued some mild complaints, followed by a request to be allowed to shut down after this harrowing ordeal. Bail granted his request. And when he was gone, turned to R2.

"It's not your fault, old friend. I'm sure you did everything you could."

R2-D2 beeped dejectedly. Bail patted him comfortingly.

"It's alright. The T7's haven't gone into production yet. There's still time to put together a sabotage mission," Bail said. "Did you record everything you saw?"

R2 beeped an affirmative.

"Good," Bail said. "Come on. To my quarters. I'll start reviewing your footage to see if there's anything that might be useful to forward to Fulcrum. We know she's not going to give up on getting those T7's out of circulation."

When they arrived at Bail's quarters, however, they found that viewing the footage would have to wait. An incoming call had Bail's eyes widening when he saw who it was from. Moments later, a hologram of someone Bail had not seen in nearly fifteen years appeared in the air.

"Old friend," Bail said, trying not to stare. He barely recognized the man.

"Senator Organa," said Obi-wan Kenobi. "I have bad news. Luke has gone missing."

"What? Missing? How?"

"I don't know," Obi-wan said. His distress was evident despite his attempts to hide it. "I can no longer sense his presence here on Tatooine. Which I can only conclude means that he is no longer on Tatooine. His aunt and uncle are frantic. They believe he's run away to join the Rebels. Do you know anything? Have you heard anything from any of your sources?"

An image of a blue haired, blue eyed teenager flashed through Bail's mind. Renegade One, or Ezra Bridger, as he'd introduced himself to Ahsoka. He was about the right age. He was Force sensitive. And the name he gave Ahsoka could have been fake.

"How long has he been missing?" Bail asked.

"Only a day," Obi-wan said. "But he could be anywhere in the galaxy by now."

That made it much more unlikely that Luke was Renegade One. Bail was glad. He liked Renegade One. He really did. But if Renegade One had been Luke, then there would have been trouble, and lot's of it. Because Renegade One was flashy. The kind of person who drew attention. Dangerous attention. And if a certain Sith Lord ever found out that he had a child then it would be that much easier for him to find out he had two.

"It takes time before I learn of new additions to any of our cells," said Bail. "Recruitment has been up lately. People have started to see that the Empire is not invincible. Many are eager to join the cause."

"I understand your position," said Obi-wan. "But I need to find Luke as quickly as possible. Please do what you can to check, and see if there's any word of him. Keep in mind that he might be using an assumed name."

Bail felt a thrum of annoyance. He fought it down. Obi-wan didn't mean to offer him insult, he realized. The older man was just worried about his charge. And with good reason.

"This would go faster if I could take the matter to Ahsoka," Bail said. But he already knew what Obi-wan was going to say to that.

"No," Obi-wan said. "Absolutely not."

"Ahsoka is the most trustworthy person I know," Bail said. "Trust me, Obi-wan. She has means of searching far beyond mine, and not only with the Force. Her contacts amongst the Rebel cells outnumber my own by far."

He didn't reveal to Obi-wan that Ahsoka was the leading of the fledgling rebellion. That was Ahsoka's secret, and one that he intended to guard with his life. If Obi-wan didn't trust Ahsoka enough to reveal to her Darth Vader's true identity, or the fact that he had children, then the old Jedi didn't deserve to be trusted with Fulcrum's secret identity. Even though these were secrets Bail hated keeping from his friends, he kept them anyway, rather than betray their trust.

"The answer is still no," said Obi-wan. "It's not that I don't trust Ahsoka. I would trust her with my life. But there was a time when I would have trusted Anakin with my life. When she meets him again, and I believe it is the will of the Force that she inevitably will, I don't know what will happen. I want to believe that she would never turn to the Dark side. But even if that's right, it doesn't mean she wouldn't betray Leia and Luke unintentionally."

Bail sighed. "I understand. I'll do what I can, Obi-wan. I'll message you back when I have something to report."

Obi-wan bowed his head. "Thank you. And may the Force be with you."

"May the Force be with you," Bail returned before ending the transmission. Then he kicked the wall as hard as he could.

Obi-wan had one job. One job. Watch Luke. It shouldn't have been too hard. They were on a desert planet, in the Outer Rim, with minimal Imperial presence. But somehow Obi-wan had lost Luke.

His comm started blinking again, and for a second, Bail thought Obi-wan had called him back. But then he realized that it was someone else. Ahsoka.

Bail sighed again. He would have preferred to have time to go through R2's footage, and try to find something they could use against the Empire before reporting the mission's failure to her. But she was calling him now, and he certainly wasn't going to ignore her.

"Fulcrum," he greeted her. "I'm afraid I have some bad news. The mission failed. And the Distruptors ended up in the hands of the Empire."

But Ahsoka was smiling. "I actually have more current news for you, Senator," she said. "The Imperial ship carrying the T7 Ion disruptors has been destroyed."

Bail blinked. Then smiled, as one thing to worry about was lifted from his mind. "This is indeed good news."

"Oh, it gets better," said Ahsoka, and her smile was pure mischief. "You remember Renegade One?"

"Of course," said Bail. Then he realized. "Don't tell me he was the one?"

"Yep." Ahsoka grinned, looking very pleased with herself. "He's gotten himself a first mate. And they were in Lothal airspace today, when the ship carrying the Disruptors emerged from hyperspace, right on top of them."

Bail winced a little. That was always a risk when hyperspace traveling. It happened so rarely that people didn't think about it much, but there was always that slight chance that you could emerge from hyperspace, right into a wreck. Or someone could emerge just in time to wreck into you.

"The Imperials started giving them a hard time. The Heavenly Blue gave them a hard time back. Then they fired on the Imperial ship and blew it up."

"Well. That is . . . fortunate," said Bail.

"Yes. It all worked out in the end," said Ahsoka.

"I guess even we get lucky sometimes," Bail said.

"Sometimes being lucky is better than being good," said Ahsoka. "Though in this case I think it was a little of both. Or simply the will of the Force. I'm not going to be picky about it."

"I should think not," Bail laughed.

"I thought I should inform you of that development immediately," said Ahsoka. "So that you wouldn't spend all evening beating yourself up over it. I'll let you go now. Unless you have anything else to report to me?"

"No," Bail lied. "Nothing to report."

Ahsoka nodded. "Fulcrum out."

Bail smiled as her image disappeared. The news she'd delivered had indeed been good. One less thing to worry about.

Now he just had to figure out how to make some discreet inquiries about newly joined up, teenage Rebels, who might be Luke.

* * *

Omake: In an open air café on Lothal.

"Cheers."

"Cheers."

Ezra and Luke clinked their glasses together, then both took long sips of their milkshakes.

"This is a really good milkshake," said Luke after a few beats of silence.

"Yeah. It really is. You're not allowed on the comms anymore, by the way," Ezra said.

"What?" Luke looked indignant.

"Ok, you can be on the comms. But not when lying is required," compromised Ezra. "From now on I'll be doing all the lying. Especially to Imperials."

Luke looked a little sulky. "I didn't do that bad . . ."

"Uh, yeah, you did," said Ezra. "Telling them that we were smuggling? Stuttering like you couldn't come up with a good lie? And what was with that fake name you made up for our ship?"

"There's nothing wrong with 'A New Hope,'" insisted Luke.

"Dude, that sounds like the kind of name you give something after the fact," said Ezra. "Like something you tag on, after everyone's already started calling it something else. Because it's lame!"

"It's not lame!"

"And it was too long," said Ezra. "Ships usually have one or two word names."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Luke. "But it's not like we'd ever use that name again. After we give a fake name to the Empire we can't use it again anyway, right? So no harm done, really."

Ezra smirked. "No harm done to us at least. That Imperial ship though, is another story."

Luke scoffed. "No one cares about them. Besides, they were asking for it. And like you said, taking down the Empire's what we came here to do. That seemed as good as any place to start."

Ezra shrugged. "Fair enough. But I'm still going to be the official liar in our team. At least until you can learn to lie better."

"Fair enough," echoed Luke. "I'll take notes."

"Alright then." Ezra took another long sip of his milkshake.

Luke did the same.

"Dammit, this is really good."

* * *

Author Note: Once again, sorry for taking so long to get an update. I've been really busy lately. Thank you for being patient, and really thank you for all the great reviews. :)

Watto may seem a little out of character from how he is in the movies, but I'm drawing from the comics for his character development. There's a really great storyline in them about what happened with Watto and Shmi after Anakin left. You can find a summary of it on Wookieepedia, under the Watto entry, but the short of it is, after Anakin left in The Phantom Menace, Watto realized that the kid had pretty much been his best friend, and started to change in some ways because of it.

Next Chapter: Ezra and the Ghost crew meet again. And it's not pretty.

Please leave a review on your way out. : )


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